Palmwine Diaries Vol. 1: Juls echoes highlife as Ghanaian music touchstone

19 Sep 2023 - 13:08

Published under the Creative Commons Licence

Juls, the British-Ghanaian DJ and producer is considered an Afrobeats savant, and is well respected across a dozen other genres. Even if he admits to being unable to define his own sound, his attachment to ‘60s and ‘70s highlife is key to interpreting his work. Now he’s released Palmwine Diaries Vol. 1, a smooth new EP and the first part of an elaborate exploration of his sound.

Juls.

The six-track collection is built on a mechanism comprising history, identity and nostalgia. It is an immersive, reflective scrapbook detailing watershed moments in Ghana’s musical journey while still managing to be relevant.

The project emphasises Juls’ creativity and edginess. His underground approach has gained him a dedicated following over the years. On the EP, Juls’ innovative touch is a thread between generations, fuelling unlikely collaborations. R2Bees, Sarkodie and KiDi revive the magic of the Afrikyewa, a local thumb bell. The Roots’ co-founder Black Thought, a patriarch of conscious rap, spars with Worlasi, an ancestral vessel and leading new luminary in Ghana. On ‘Wossop’, Quamina MP and Kofi Mole (young cats you would think were raised on trap) reawaken the thumping Hammer-led hiplife that distinguished artists like Okra Tom Dawidi.

On ‘Enjoyment’, an invitation to a hiplife dance soirée, Pure Akan reaffirms his reputation as a royal linguist and expert in the genre through a performance filled with apt slang and euphonious storytelling. The snare on ‘Sometin Small’, starring local rising star Cina Soul, is something Afrobeat co-creator Tony Allen could have arranged. It’s all connected. The EP winds down with ‘Palmwine Riddim’, featuring sweet trumpets, heartfelt folk chants and libation prayers.

Folk music is nothing if not adaptable. This is what the project mainly illustrates. Throughout the EP, traditional percussion, strings and horns are employed as building blocks; they open the songs up to diverse interpretations. Highlife, hip hop, hiplife, Afrobeat and jazz all find home in Juls’ intriguing fusion.