What is highlife music? The music of the Yoruba people had always consisted of drums (dundun, bata, akuba), flutes, xylophones and “agidigbo,” a boxed stringed instrument. After World War 2, soldiers coming back home from Europe brought the guitar. Added to the big-band instruments of jazz especially horns from the U.S. and Caribbean, this modern sound was called “high life” because it was adopted by the elites – the rich and educated classes in Lagos and other parts of Yorub