Nothing puts a smile on the face and gets the feet moving like Highlife music. So, to celebrate a century of recorded Ghanaian highlife, here’s a prime example by the late legend Atakora Manu.

It’s got a killer bassline (by Ralph Karkari) that hits you in the belly, while the rattling rhythms (drummer Yaw Tonty and  Lord Sakyi on congas) and twin saxophones (Susei) transport you straight to a steamy nightclub on the back streets of Accra.

If you’re from Ghana, you may already know (of) him from Kakaiku No.2 Band, or his early-Sixties outfit the Princess Trio, which he left in 1963 to play guitar with the United Ghana Farmers’ Council Drama Troupe – which I really hope is a travelling troupe of theatrically inclined farmers rather than an elaborate band name.

This tune, from the 1980s, builds on his subsequent work as a studio engineer, blending quirky electronic synth parts and his own rootsy vintage-sounding “palm wine” guitar into the irrepressible rhythms, and that serpentine twin-sax melody that has more in common with jazz.

Should anyone here want to hear more of it, this is from the British BBE label’s brand new repackaging of two of Manu’s mid-Eighties albums as a double album.

Ominitiminim and the rather more self-explanatory Afro Highlife are available on a streaming service near you right now – also featuring a floor filler called Osebo Anyame Ankyeme that will knock your socks off.