Music of Saturday, 9 June 2007

Source: ghanamusic.com

Mac Tontoh Not Happy With ?Stars Of The Future?

Organisers of ?Stars of the Future?, a talent hunt reality show, have been advised to use it to promote Ghanaian music instead of foreign songs.

The contestants of the show were also counseled to be business-minded if they wished to make it in the music industry.

Mac Tontoh, a veteran musician, gave the advice when he spoke to Beatwaves, after the official launch of this year?s ?Stars of the Future? show at the National Theatre, in Accra on how he feels about the event.

He advised that the organisers of the event trained the contestants to perform their own compositions instead of imitating and performing songs which belonged to foreign musicians, adding, ?Performing someone?s music can not make you a star.?

According to him, he had nothing against the programme or its organisers, but the programme itself needed to be restructured to promote local music.

?What the contestants are doing is purely foreign. It very painful that people see them as future stars which they are not. Americans would never promote Ghanaian or African music through programmes like American Idol because they see theirs as more important than ours,? Mac lamented.

He said those who wanted to become successful musicians should cultivate the spirit of sacrifice, self denial and perseverance.

Mac Tontoh explained that self-perseverance and self-denial meant the potential musician needed to sustain his/her learning process because the profession demanded creativity. He was of the view that those who participated in talent hunt programmes should be given formal training on how to compose and arrange their own songs.

?Performing Madonna?s song, ?Holiday? can not make one a music star.

?The programme is too foreign and needs to be suspended since it can not create future stars. Charterhouse, the organisers of the event, should rather put up a music school to train future stars instead of wasting resources on programmes such as the ?Star of the Future? programme.?