Popular Music of Liberia

Music of highlife is very popular in Liberia, as elsewhere in West Africa. This is a mixture of the North American, West African and Latin American patterns and it appeared in the 1950s in Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, especially among the Liberian Kru tribe, who were sailors that played banjo, harmonica, Spanish guitar, pennywhistle, mandolin, accordion and concertina.

The previous and the present artists include Fatu Gayflor, Nimba Burr, Princess Hawa Daisy Moore, Yatta Zoe, Tejajlu, Morris Dorley, Nagbe Gebah Swaray, Anthony Experience, Miatta Fahnbulleh and Kandakai Duncan. Of these Dorley merit unique notice for having spearheaded a trend to make a national Liberian identity, alongside artists like Anthony Experience Nagbe. Dorly famous songs include who are You Baby and Grand Gedeh County.

There is a new type of budding artists present in Liberia. They have made their own pattern known as HIP-CO, which is usually in the Liberian English or local dialect. This music is very famous within the youth and adults. It touches all the area of life in Liberia. The country’s most popular radio station is known as ELBC, or the Liberian Broadcasting Corporation.

In the year 1993, President Tubman set-up the new Cape-Palmas Military band, Israeli Bandmaster Aharpo Shefi created and conducted a 56 pieces sows and marching band that performed in Liberian, America and universal folk and church music. The CPMB performed in January 1^st 1994 during the President Tubman’s inauguration in Monrovia. All the heads of states in the world expressed their high impression and extended greetings on the high quality of the band. Among the pieces played were highlife, new marches by the late Liberian composer Victor Bowya, national anthem and the Lone Star Forever. The CPMB had also performed in schools, holiday and military parades, churches and official occasions.