Ghana’s highlife pioneer passed away this week on February 7th. Passing at the great age of 90, Ebo Taylor’s impact on music was profound. Fusing highlife, afro-beats, funk, jazz and more, his sound and legacy live on eternally.
Taylor started his musical journey learning piano at age 6, before embarking into the world of highlife through his love of the guitar. As lead-guitarist and arranger for Stargazers Band and Broadway Dance Band, Taylor found fame, writing their acclaimed tracks including ‘Sika Enibre’, ‘Owu Na Mewu’ and ‘Dofo’. These songs would help define the highlife sound and inturn, afro-beat.
In 1962, Taylor went to the UK to study at the Eric Guilder School of Music in London, where he’d establish a West African music scene, fronting the Ghana Black Star Band. Returning to Ghana in 1965, Taylor joined the Uhuru Dance Band, eventually leading it in 1970. Uhuru Dance band encompassed a high-energy Afro-house and funk fusion, featuring heavy percussion and bluesy vocals. Their name represents Ghana’s independence, with Uhuru meaning freedom in Swahili. With an unmatched effervescence, the band would go on to be one of Ghana’s most beloved and historic.
From the early 70s, Taylor would establish his solo sound, releasing the 1975 album ‘Ebo Taylor and The Pelikans’ before his first complete solo release in 1977 with his historic self-titled record. In the 80s, Taylor would pass down his eclectic knowledge, teaching at Ghana University, which enable his expansion of his musical research, contributing to his acclaimed return.
In 2010, at age 74, Taylor saw triumphant global success with the release of his album ‘Love & Death’, named after his early acclaimed single from the 1980s album ‘Conflict’. Produced with Berlin-based Afrobeat Academy on Strut Records, ‘Love & Death’ revitalised his radiant afro-jazz-funk sound with an innovation whilst maintaining Taylor’s genuine, vintage-esque roots planted firmly in the ground of his early sound. The majority of the tracks were newly written, bar the hit title track, which featured a new revised version. This single, originally written about his wife leaving him in the 1980s, is arguably his most successful, with streams reaching several million and being a classic play at countless afro, funk and jazz DJ sets around the world.
Taylor’s legacy also resides within modern pop culture and R&B music. Countless artists would go on to sample his work in R&B hits like Usher’s ‘She Don’t Know’, which samples his major track ‘Heaven’. More recently, Kelly Rowland of Destiny’s Child’s ‘Black Magic’ samples Taylor’s ‘Odofo Nyi Akyiri Biara’.
Ebo Taylor repeatedly established his legendary status decade upon decade, only showing his true devotion and adoration of his craft. He put Highlife music and West African scenes on the musical map and, although no longer with us, his impact ever-lingers and ever-inspires.
