Sanity In The Music Industry

Kojo Antwi setting high standards in the industry

Music they say is the food for the soul, a kind of food that cannot be cooked anywhere except those prepared by musicians. In all aspect of our lives as human beings, we hear music everyday that communicates with us in our innermost beings. Music, in some strange sense is also seen as universal in such a way that lovers of music irrespective of the origin of it appreciate even the rhythm alone.

Most young people around the world will prefer to buy the songs of their idols that they have not seen before, buying of newspapers written by people they know or see everyday. What happened when Shaggy came to Ghana? People did not think that his show at the Conference Centre costing four cool hundred thousand cedis would be patronised but what we saw later was something else and yet we have been made to believe that Ghana has gone HIPC! If Spacefon had asked people to buy a copy of Graphic at that amount to win a chip, the company would have been asked to close down by now. This is to confirm that most people in all aspect no matter the origin love music.

In Ghana, certain musicians are associated with particular styles of music. Nana Ampadu, the Black Chinese, Ambolley, Kojo Antwi, Tagoe Sisters, Daddy Lumba, Tic Tac and likes are known for their special style of music and all these persons have followers who will kill to get a copy of their cassettes. Interestingly enough, these showbiz personalities also have their own style of dressing to accompany their songs on stage. Kojo Antwi for example is known for the neatly dressed locks with a scarf on stage.

With new styles of music come styles of dressing by our musicians most especially the up and coming young ones. Among the new styles of dressing, the costume of the late Terry Bonchaka stands out very well. His kind of dressing can be described as a contemporary African costume with his own style of dancing different from the yoyo that most youth are known for and the lyrics accepted by majority of the youth due to their uniqueness.

In spite of the greater efforts of some musicians to create positive images on their fans, some have adopted the habit of making negativity of their joy on the market just because people love on their songs. Of late some lyrics we hear on the airwaves by these musicians are very disheartening. Some songs are now used to provoke the sexual instinct of the listeners and this is not healthy at all for us as a people. Our cultural setup is different from the idols that we wish to copy in our music. Though music is universal, the lyrics differ from country to country so as to suit the circumstances or the taste of the listeners. The profane nature of the some lyrics for the musicians should take into consideration the fact that children are also part of the listening community of their works.

Some of the video clips accompanying the lyrics on the screen are also worth mentioning here especially those with ladies on the bill. Most often than not, certain parts of the ladies? bodies are indiscriminately exposed to the public. The most annoying part is the case where where the cameraman captures these parts on the screen very broadly for us to consume. This does indeed make the music very popular for monetary power but what contribution at all are they serving to the society in terms of morality? And women should not be used in the clips to indicate that they are just sexual objects, they should rather portrayed as gifts of womanhood. It is about time that music fans asked for decency when their idols are concerned.