Kwaw Kese laments 20 years without royalties, media payola system

Kwaw Kese has in a tweet lamented doing music for 20 years without getting paid any royalties.

The rapper said this today, Thursday, December 15, 2022.

“20 years of doing music in Ghana and [I’ve] never got[ten] paid any royalties,” he started.

Kwaw also profoundly decried the upside-down system on the local scene where artistes rather have to pay the media to broadcast their art.

“You rather have to pay DJs to play your music, pay TV [stations] to show your videos, bloggers to blog your content and press media to give you press,” he said.

He highlighted how enormously burdened independent music acts are by asking: “How can you [an artiste] survive [in] this industry by financing all these by yourself?”

In a follow-up tweet, the Madtime Entertainment founder compared doing music in his home country to "elsewhere," where his "friend produced one song for a musician and has made over 2 million dollars," out of that single endeavour.

"Down here, you only get paid with insults and disrespect," he bemoaned. "Release a song today and tomorrow they’ll be asking when are you releasing a new song?"

One of Ghana’s most influential Hiphop/Hiplife figures, Kwaw Kese came to public notice as part of Da’ Hammer’s The Last Two collective.

Born Emmanuel Kofi Botwe, the Swedru-native is known for big hits like 'The World', ‘Nonsense’, ‘Poppin’ and ‘Na Y’atal’.