highlife

American  

[hahy-lahyf] / ˈhaɪˌlaɪf /

noun

1. an expensive, glamorous, or elegant style of living.

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highlife British  

/ ˈhaɪˌlaɪf /

noun

1. 1. a style of music combining West African elements with US jazz forms, found esp in the cities of West Africa

   2. ( as modifier )

      a highlife band

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Etymology

Origin of highlife

First recorded in 1755–65; high + life

Example Sentences

The exchange of ideas between the two would later be seen as formative to the development of Afrobeat, a political cocktail blending highlife with funk, jazz and soul.

From Barron's • Feb. 9, 2026

His grooves were sampled by hip-hop and R&B artists and helped introduce new global audiences to Ghanaian highlife.

From Barron's • Feb. 9, 2026

Ebo Taylor, the Ghanaian guitarist, composer and band leader whose work helped define the highlife genre and influenced generations of African musicians, has died at the age of 90, his family has announced.

From BBC • Feb. 8, 2026

Together, they ripped the genre rulebook to shreds, magpie-ing elements of Afrobeat, hip-hop, grime, reggae, Latin, R&B, highlife and jazz to create a sound that bulges with possibility.

From BBC • Jan. 8, 2025

Once he’d committed himself to music in his late teens, he threw himself into Idonije’s five-digit record collection, flipping highlife, afrobeat and jazz vinyls on the turntable for hours in his garage.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 16, 2023