Veteran Ghanaian highlife artiste Roland Tetteh, who is widely known in the showbiz circles as NanaBa Tee, has said that the current crop of musicians do not like the Highlife rhythm, hence the reason the genre is dwindling and becoming unattractive to listeners.
Speaking to Tony Best on Akoma FM’s Kwantenpon Drive on Thursday, March 25, NanaBa Tee, who also doubles as a music producer, revealed that one of the challenges that have befallen the progression of Highlife is the fact that the current crop of musicians already has preconceived beats or instrumentations and always wish their songs are produced the same way they heard other songs else they may not even visit the recording studios again.
“If you are a song engineer or a producer and you share knowledge on how the rhythms are to be programmed on some songs, the musicians will see you as not being too smart or up-to-date because they think you can’t play current rhythms and beats and very soon you will be out of business,” he said.
“So sometimes we have no option than to conform to their requests,” NanaBa Tee had said.
Responding to the fear of paying too much to an old artiste to have some old songs remixed and how best new crop of musicians can collaborate easily with old artistes, NanaBa opined that the best way is to sign a clear-cut contract between artistes as to how profits and royalties will be shared after remixing and releasing the song.