The President of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), Bessa Simons, has credited Borga Highlife with expanding Ghanaian music and making it more adaptable to other genres.
Speaking on The Chat, he explained that Borga Highlife—popularized in the 1980s by artistes like George Darko and Ben Brako —maintained the core elements of traditional highlife while incorporating new digital sounds.
According to him, Borga Highlife not only modernised highlife but also paved the way for fusion with other musical styles.
“From those days, recordings became digital. What happened was that the sounds changed, there were synthesisers, electric drums, and lean drums all came in to change the sound as we have. But still the borga highlife had the proper highlife elements in it.
“When you hear George Darko on the guitar and sings the Akoo ti brofo song, no one will tell you that this is coming from a Ghanaian because no other person could sing like that, now that is where the highlife element comes in.
“So, the borga highlife really enhanced the proper highlife because people now realised that they could fuse it into other genres of music. That is why I keep saying highlife is the easiest genre you can fall on and fuse into any genre, it will just fit,” he stated.