Roots to Fruits #1: Ghanaian Highlife

‘Roots to Fruits’ is a magazine about music; its migration and origins, and its role against oppression. The first issue is dedicated to Highlife and its vital role in the struggle for independence and the creation of an African identity during the time of Kwame Nkrumah. It features an article by Dele Adeyemo, and a visual essay by Mirelle van Tulder with images from the archive of the Tropenmuseum and KIT (Royal Tropical Institute).

Dele Adeyemo’s ‘The Modernizing Beat’ rereads the production of space in a modernizing Ghana through highlife, taking the modernist New Town and Tema Harbour as a case study about how the emergence of the ‘worksong’ has governed urbanization in Ghana.

Mirelle van Tulder is the founder of Roots to Fruits. She is an artist, designer, and research associate at the Research Center for Material Culture (National Museum of World Cultures, NL).