Ebo Taylor, the Ghanaian musician widely regarded as a definitive force behind the highlife genre, has died at the age of 90. His son Kweku Taylor announced the news on Sunday, saying: 'The world has lost a giant. A colossus of African music. Ebo Taylor passed away yesterday; a day after the launch of Ebo Taylor music festival and exactly a month after his 90th birthday, leaving behind an unmatched artistry legacy. Dad, your light will never fade.'
A spokesperson for the Ghanaian president told the BBC's Newsday programme that Taylor would 'be remembered as one of our greatest musicians ever ... a man who strove to put Ghanaian music on the global map at a time when other genres of music were prominent'. A recent interview on the music website Passion of the Weiss hailed Taylor as 'the greatest rhythm guitarist in history … with complete originality, he incorporated the diverse rhythmic traditions of the Ga, Ewe, Dagomba and his own Akan people into his compositions.'
Born Deroy Taylor on Ghana's Cape Coast on 6 January 1936, he started playing piano at the age of six, his tastes shaped by American and English music, in part as a result of Ghana being a British colony at the time. He switched to guitar while at college and joined the Stargazers, whose members Teddy Osei and Sol Amarfio would later form the UK-based Afro-rock band Osibisa. He became known for his rare embrace of both highlife – largely played in a major mode – and Afrobeat, which hews to minor modes.
In the early 1960s, Taylor studied at the Eric Gilder School of Music in London, where he learned from Dvořák and cited the complexity of the Czech composer's music as an influence. He also met the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and became friends with Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, who was studying at Trinity College. The pair bonded over a common interest in highlife and often jammed together. 'We also had the desire to become a Miles Davis, a Charlie Christian, or a Kenny Burrell,' Taylor told Post Genre in 2025. 'So we had the same mood … He was such a playful and lively person.'
After forming the Black Star Highlife Band in London in 1964, Taylor returned to Ghana a year later and formed bands including the New Broadway Dance Band and the Blue Monks. In the early 1970s, he worked as in-house guitarist, arranger and producer at the Essiebons label, recording several of his own albums and working with artists such as Pat Thomas and Gyedu-Blay Ambolley. In the 1980s, he stepped back from fronting his own bands to work on other artists' records, and in the 2000s, he taught music at the University of Ghana.
His first internationally released album, Love and Death, came out in 2010, prompting a renewed run of activity that included the albums Appia Kwa Bridge (2012) and Yen Ara (2018), as well as international tours. Taylor's songs were sampled by artists including Usher, the Black Eyed Peas, Kelly Rowland, Jidenna and Vic Mensa. In 2014, he told the BBC: 'With the advent of James Brown and funk music there was the opportunity to develop highlife music. Fela did a lot of work introducing the funk into the Yoruba music while comparatively I did almost the same thing in Ghana.'
