Musicians in Ghana threaten event organizers

If the current trend of musicians staging their own musical concerts become the order of the day, the mind boggling question is, won't they become threats or competitors to major music event organizers or companies?

The concept of musicians staging their own major musical concerts is steadily becoming a usance in our showbiz industry.

I stand to be corrected though, but if my diary is dead-on my observations of male musicians of today, Samini started the journey and has so far staged his own major concerts with two international dancehall musicians, Mavado and Demarco. We can also talk of Sarkodie who is nurturing his annual 'Raperholic' concert. Following suit are; Okyeame Kwame, Kwaw Kesse, Sonni Badu, and a few others.

On the female side, Becca is also assiduously fostering her all female musical concert dubbed, 'Becca's Girl Talk as well as Ohemaa Mercy whose Tehilla Praiz concert is about to happen for the second time in March this year.' It is also an annual event. Very soon, the other female musicians such as Efya, Eazy, Raquel, Mzbel, Irene Logan, etc may also ape. In principle, I don't think there is anything wrong with a musician or musicians staging their own major musical concert (s). Nonetheless, the wrong may come if they end up becoming threats or competitors to the event organizers or companies who should rather organize the concerts and then hire the musicians to perform for a fee.

>Our musicians always complain of relatively small performance fees event organizers or companies pay them; that is why some of them have smartly resorted to organizing their own musical concerts. Speaking on one radio station some weeks ago, Okyeame Kwame said; 'why should I sit down and wait for an event organizer to organize a musical concert and pay me a scanty fee when I can gather some resources, solicit for sponsorship and stage my own musical concert for my fans to attend?' Those were an air of uncontrived spontaneous utterance apt to be painstakingly achieved by Okyeame Kwame.

Just as one musician started and a number of them have begun following suit, we shouldn't be surprised if sooner than later, all our musicians start staging their own musical concerts. It is typical of us. We are not daring and also refuse to use our nous to create, hence, we always wait patiently for one of us or someone from elsewhere to rack his or her brain, create something, then all of us shamelessly jump unto it. At the end of the day, we dilute the concept and face the bilking up shots.

The consequences of musicians staging their own concerts on event organizers can never be said to be a healthy one. First, those musicians may eventually become narcissistic at event organizers; 'after all 'I can organize my own musical concert successfully.'Secondly, looking at the profit they make, those musicians would be emboldened to charge usurious performance fees which the event organizers will not be able to pay.

For instance, if after deducting all expenses, Okyeame Kwame could realize GHC 50,000 into his personal account after his 'Versatile show,'then by logical extension, it means his fee as an artiste is the said amount so why should he charge GHC 15, 000 which most event companies' nag about?

Thirdly, some of the event organizers or companies upon realizing that all the 'big' musicians they ride on to hype their shows and make supernormal profits are the very ones organizing their own musical shows as well as featuring other 'big' artistes; might device raw sabotaging schemes. I see fire on the mountain.

So the question re-echoes, are musicians not becoming threats to music event organizers? The above sequellas I've enumerated may not be now but in the not too long future when many musicians turn music event organizers and stage their own annual musical concerts, we may all live and bear witness to my vaticination. Let's all live and see what happens. Until then…….MOTWUM!!