A landmark Ghanaian hotel credited as the cradle of a golden era of highlife music is to be demolished within days, sparking anguish among cultural figures who say the country is “pulling down its own memory”.
The former Zenith Hotel in Takoradi, Western Region – once home to some of Africa’s most influential dance bands – has been named as the first structure to go in a major operation targeting 88 unsafe and derelict buildings across the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis.
The Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Directorate of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) has confirmed that final technical assessments are under way on the crumbling property and the adjoining Prempeh Cinema, ahead of an expected demolition.
Officials insist public safety must come first. But for musicians, historians and residents, the loss of Zenith Hotel represents something far deeper than the removal of an old building.
“This is not just a building. This is sacred ground. This is where our music was born,” one commentator wrote, describing weeping when the demolition plans were confirmed.
Cradle of a musical revolution
From the late 1950s, the Zenith Hotel stood at the heart of Ghana’s post-independence cultural explosion.
In 1958, hotel owner J.K. Agyepong – who also operated the nearby Prempeh Cinema – took the unprecedented step of fully financing and accommodating a resident big band at the hotel. The group, founded by Nigerian trumpeter Sam Obote and initially called the Broadway Dance Band, is widely regarded as the first of its kind in Africa.
In a coastal city far from Accra’s political centre, Agyepong backed the project not for quick profit, but out of faith in the transformative power of music.
The band’s sound blended ballroom jazz, blues and highlife, and by the early 1960s it had effectively become a national orchestra. The musicians toured with President Kwame Nkrumah and performed at major state occasions, including the inauguration of Ghana Airways, which took them to stages as far afield as Khartoum and Beirut.
Their performances carried Ghana’s name abroad through song rather than politics or minerals.
In 1964, following a legal dispute with hotel management over the use of the name “Broadway”, the group rebranded as the Uhuru Dance Band. The 24-piece orchestra went on to become one of Ghana’s most celebrated musical exports, securing its place in African music history.
“The musicians who played there were national treasures. And the hotel was their home,” the same writer recalled.
Birthplace of Pat Thomas’s stardom
Zenith Hotel was more than a high-profile venue; it was widely remembered as an incubator of raw talent.
Highlife legend Pat Thomas – later to become one of Ghana’s most recognisable voices – is said to have found his break there. According to the oft-told story, a young Thomas walked into a rehearsal at the hotel uninvited, stepped up to the band and began to sing.
His impromptu performance stopped the musicians in their tracks.
“He wasn’t invited. He wasn’t announced. He just walked in and opened his mouth. His delivery was so powerful that it stunned the entire room. The musicians stopped playing. They just stared. And in that moment, a legend was born,” the eyewitness account says.
For many, that moment symbolises what Zenith represented – a place where a talented unknown could transform their life in a single evening.
From cultural icon to condemned structure
Decades later, the once-grand hotel has deteriorated into a hazardous shell.
NADMO says the property, along with dozens of other derelict structures in the metropolis, poses a serious risk to the public and must be removed. The demolition drive is part of efforts to prevent building collapses and other disasters in the fast-growing coastal city.
“I understand the practicalities. I understand that buildings deteriorate. I understand that safety matters,” the writer said.
“But what I don’t understand is how we got here. How did we let a national treasure become a squatter’s shelter? How did we let the walls that once echoed with jazz trumpets and highlife guitars become a danger to the public?”
‘A museum that never was’
For years, campaigners argued that Zenith Hotel should be preserved and repurposed as a museum dedicated to Ghana’s highlife heritage.
They say the building could have become a focal point for cultural tourism, school visits and scholarly research – a physical testament to the era when Takoradi helped shape the sound of a continent.
“Imagine it. Tourists from all over the world coming to Takoradi to see where Pat Thomas sang his first notes, where the Broadway Dance Band rehearsed, where President Nkrumah’s orchestra was born. Imagine schoolchildren visiting to learn about their musical heritage,” the article reflected.
“Instead, we let it rot. We let it become a dilapidated shell. And now, safety concerns have given us no choice but to pull it down.
“We could have saved it. We should have saved it. But we didn’t.”
‘Demolishing our memory’
As the demolition date approaches, critics of the decision say Ghana must learn lessons about how it treats sites of cultural and musical importance.
“When the demolition begins, the walls of the Zenith Hotel will fallwalls that once echoed with jazz trumpets and highlife guitars. Walls that heard the laughter of musicians and the whispers of lovers. Walls that held the dreams of a young nation finding its voice,” the writer said.
“When I heard the news, I wept for my country. Not because we are demolishing a building, but because we are demolishing our memory. We are choosing practicality over history, convenience over legacy.”
The building may soon vanish from Takoradi’s skyline, but for those who knew its story, its legacy lives on in Ghana’s highlife standards, in the careers it launched and in the memories it shaped.
“The Zenith Hotel is gone. But the musicthe music will never die. It lives in every highlife song we sing, every dance we dance, every memory we hold.
“But oh, what a loss. What a terrible, avoidable loss.”
