Sista Afia admonishes TikTok influencers for exorbitant fees, bias for foreign music

Singer Sista Afia has admonished Ghanaian TikTok influencers for favouring foreign music over local ones.

The 'Asuoden (Stubborn)' hitmaker also decried the expensive fees said influencers charge for promoting songs.

"It's really sad," Afia said. "Fine, you need to earn from your efforts but I have observed something on that side. They don't promote our own as much as the Nigerians. It baffles me."

"Anytime I see a dance thing, it's normally a Nigerian tune. Fine, maybe the Nigerian tune is the one that is widespread so maybe they [local influencers] use it to gather likes and views [to their channels] but we can start from there..." the Highlife and Afrobeats performer cited, adding: "I mean, when it comes to music and building our own music, these things can help."

Sista Afia cited an instance where an influencer would ask an artiste to pay "GHS20,000 for just TikTok and those things and then you go to the person's page and you'd be like: 'GHS20,000, I can give it to you but I don't see any profit coming out of it'."

"Right now, everyone is charging for their service which is fine but when you're promoting, promote ours [Ghanaians] more because right now if you go look at the dance challenges, most of them are doing Nigerian music. They don't do our own and when you engage them, they'll charge you a huge amount of money," she bemoaned.

"Ah," Afia expressed shock. "How then do you want to support our music?

"You have the platform to do that. The more you dance to our music, the further the song travels."

Assuming that perhaps the TikTok influencers promote foreign, particularly Nigerian, songs in hopes to work with their respective artistes when they visit Ghana, she stressed that "we need to attend to our local work before that of others."

Sista Afia spoke to Nana Romeo on Accra 100.5 FM, today, Thursday, March 2, 2023.

Her latest offering is an Afrobeats song titled 'Carry Go'.