Ghanaian gospel artistes/songs not popular in Nigeria

One of Nigeria's respected arts writers, Chuks Ineh, has revealed to Flex Newspaper that Ghanaian gospel artistes and their songs are not popular in Nigeria.

Ghanaian but UK based gospel musician, Sonnie Badu, and some pundits in Ghana's showbiz industry have said on few occasions that the kind of songs Ghanaian gospel musicians produce in Ghana can't take them or their songs to the international market or put Ghana unto the global map.

Since Ghana and Nigeria are like twins with separate mothers, Flex newspaper got in touch with Chuks Ineh of chuksineh.com and asked him whether Ghanaian gospel artistes or their songs are popular in Nigeria. Chucks gave to understanding “not even one Ghanaian gospel artiste or song is popular in Nigeria. I am not ubiquitous in Nigeria but what I'm telling you is a fact!” When asked if he has any reasons to share on why Ghanaian gospel artistes and their songs are not popular in Nigeria, Chuks said its 'promotional deficiency.'

“The main reason is what I term as 'promotional deficiency.' The Ghanaian gospel musicians don't do promotion in Nigeria as the secular artistes do. So once again, its lack of promotion, period!” Chuks went further to reveal that language is not a barrier in this case.”

“Language is not a barrier in this case. Music is such that sometime it's not about the lyrics but the rhythm. Ghana's highlife music was very popular in Nigeria in the past. It's the rhythm that matters and not the Language! Even in Nigeria Igbos and Yorubas speak different languages but they both enjoy each other's songs”, Chucks intimated.

Meanwhile, secular artistes like Sarkodie, VIP, 4x4, R2Bees, Guru, Ruff-N-Smooth, Fuse ODG, and some others are very huge in Nigeria. “We enjoy their songs (the aforementioned secular artistes) here in Nigeria. Currently most Nigerians are enjoying Azonto.”

“I recently attended a naming ceremony and you should have been there to see how the patrons were dancing Azonto with Ghanaian songs! Ghanaian secular songs are not doing badly in Nigeria at all. Nigeria play Ghanaian songs, once it is nice, just as Ghanaians also do with great Nigeria songs!”

As much as I agree with Chucks that sometimes, loving a song isn't about the lyrics - kind of language, in the case of gospel, it does a lot; because, gospel music is not a genre of music and thus, does not have any distinctive rhythm.

It's the lyrics that make a song gospel, so if one cannot understand the language of the song, the whole music becomes too an alien-product' to identify with. So as much as our gospel musicians should intensify their promotions in Nigeria and any part of the world (because they have a huge market), they should also endeavour to sing in English and stop being 'local champions' in Ghana.