I have the wonderful opportunity to partake in two internships while I am in Ghana for the summer. One of which is at the University of Ghana’s radio station called Radio Univers.

Side note: I noticed all Ghanaian radio DJs repeat songs over and over again. By cutting out the song at the end, saying a few words, fading in the song, cutting out the song again, saying a few words again, the song usually repeats at least once depending on what they have to say. They also love hitting sound effects in the middle of songs. It literally hurts my soul when I hear this.

At the radio station, I get to be an on-air personality alongside three students discussing popular Ghanaian songs and music news. We talk about mostly highlife or hiplife music, which are music genres that originated here. Highlife was created out of applying Western musical styles to traditional Akan music; it’s an umbrella term for different variations of the genre over the decades. Popular highlife sounds like a calming jazzy, electronic reggae. Hiplife is highlife combined with American hip-hop. You can hear afro-beat influences in both genres as well.

What better way to understand Ghanaian music than to talk about it on a show and listen to Ghanaian music for two hours straight? It’s fantastic. Also, the first day on-air they called me DJ China Woman – this nickname has stuck and I am okay with this.

Here’s a playlist of my favorite popular Ghanaian music songs (mostly hiplife and GH Rap, because I like their hip-hop styled songs):

Give “Selfie” a listen; it’s our group’s favorite song. Check out my music blog at audiodosages.wordpress.com and keep up with my musical discoveries while in Ghana.