Projecting Ghanaian Music? From The Other Side

Come March 13, 2004 and the Ghana Music Awards will be five years old. Hurrah! The categories of the selection are already in the public domain. In fact the organizers of the event have promised a great and excellent night to award deserving artistes for their hard work and contribution towards the music industry.

However, one can boldly say that in spite of all the packages given to our favourite artistes for their works, not much has been heard of our indigenous music with our rhythms except the diluted ones we now call ?raps?. Due to the diluted nature of our music, it is very difficult to present our beautifully composed songs to gain international recognition.

Recently, Kojo Antwi (a force to reckon with) was at the KORA Awards in South Africa for an award and, truly speaking, the guy made us very proud as Ghanaians. Besides, some of the young ?guys? graced the occasion with their performances to add the Ghanaian ?scent? to the ceremony and implicitly to give moral support to the Music Man.

At times, when you switch on the television you see some artistes from other African countries performing on our screens. What I find out from the stations is whether they also promote our musicians in other countries? We need to know.

Critically speaking certain groups and individuals in the music world get more contracts to perform abroad due to the uniqueness of their lyrics and rhythms: authentically African and Ghanaian no matter what. Most of these up and coming young artiste wish that they have the opportunity to perform abroad more in their hiplife than pure highlife.

The argument is not over whether it is right to change the trend of our music, but some of us believe that foreign elements are indoctrinating the beats and rhythms of most these hiplife songs more often than our traditional rhythms found in boboobo and kpanlogo. When you take a careful look at our own traditional songs you realise that they possess certain authentic and artistic beats that our musicians can use to attract international audience and research.

In Cote D?Ivoire for instance, some of their artistes such as Petit Denis, Petit Yode et l?enfant Sori, Marabou among others use zouglou rhythms in their music and I guess the youth of Ghana who have seen them perform on their screens really enjoy their songs, not because of the lyrics (which are in French) but because of the rhythms.

With Alhaji Sidiku?s new position on the international front, we expect our music to be exported and collaborative productions with other countries promoted with the mixture of beats and rhythms to come out with excellent pieces.

The mediatory in the industry must end now as we celebrate the fifth year of the Ghana Music Awards and produce original artistic work of substance. The media should also stop promoting more foreign songs for us to learn about what we have. Probably it is about time we start domesticating our artistes and their works.