His most famous song was the one parents pretended not to know the words to. A.B. Crentsil’s “Moses” was a highlife record built on jokes that preachers and schoolteachers did not want children to hear, and that made it a hit. For decades, Crentsil was the man who could make a Ghanaian dance floor laugh.
From Prestea
Alfred Benjamin Crentsil Jr. was born in 1943 at Prestea, the gold-mining town in the Western Region of what was then the Gold Coast. He came to music through the dance band and guitar band traditions that dominated Ghanaian popular music in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Sweet Talks
In the 1970s, Crentsil co-led the Sweet Talks, one of the most popular Ghanaian highlife bands of the decade, with Smart Nkansah. The band played a polished, danceable highlife that worked in clubs and on record. Its albums included Hollywood Highlife Party, parts of which were recorded during a visit to the United States in 1978.
Hard times
The late 1970s were a hard time for Ghanaian bands. Economic collapse, curfews and military rule made it difficult to tour, buy equipment or keep musicians together. The Sweet Talks broke up at the end of the decade, with sources dating the split to 1978 or 1979.
Ahenfo
In 1982, Crentsil formed a new band, Ahenfo. With them he recorded the songs that defined his later career. “Moses” became his best-known record, notorious for its suggestive lyrics. It was played at parties, criticised by moralists and remembered by everyone who heard it.
Humour as a style
Crentsil’s gift was comedy. Highlife had a tradition of storytelling, proverbs and social commentary. He added cheek. His songs teased lovers, mocked hypocrites and played with double meanings. Graphic described his career as a mix of humour and controversy, and that was the attraction.
Abroad
Like many Ghanaian musicians of his generation, Crentsil spent time abroad, including in North America, where he performed for Ghanaian communities. His records circulated among highlife collectors worldwide, and the American critic Robert Christgau reviewed his work.
A highlife elder
In later life, Crentsil was treated as one of the elders of highlife, invited to festivals and tribute shows. Younger audiences discovered his songs through their parents and on social media clips.
His death
A.B. Crentsil died on 13 July 2022. Tributes described him as a highlife great. Ghanaian music has grown more polished and more global since his peak. It has rarely been as openly funny. Crentsil’s songs remind listeners that highlife was always meant for the dance floor, where people laugh as well as move.
