Use Clean Lyrics ? Public Urges Musicians

A section of the general public who appreciate the power and influence of music have called on Ghanaian musicians, especially, those from the highlife and hiplife departments to be circumspect in the choice of their lyrics anytime they decide to write their songs.

According to them, most people, especially the young ones look inspiration from what they listened to through music, to lead their lives and because music is one of the main channels through which we get inspired to act either socially or morally, it was only proper and moral that our musicians give us clean lyrics to help us from our opinion.

This came to light when the Chronicle On Saturday conducted a random sampling of opinion from the general public in Accra and Tema on what they think about the kind of lyrics our artistes charm out of late.

While some thought that music was a way by which some people lived to enjoy themselves, it must come with all the flavour, taste and the kind of message they love to hear.

?You know, we have movies, it doesn?t matter whether it is Nigerian, Ghanaian or foreign movies. And within the movies some people enjoy love stories while others go for action, comprising guns and blows. Yet other people go in for horror movies. That is individual taste, and why not music?? Kofi Nkansah, one of the respondents summed it that way.

Another respondent, who did not want to disclose his identity wondered why some people would want to listen to songs with clean lyrics, describing it as a breach of the human rights of the people who wanted to enjoy a special kind of music.

However, majority of the people we spoke to flatly condemned al those songs which came with filthy lyrics and believed they were the cause of the bad state of our social lives which is full of immoral demeanour, especially on the part of the our youth.

?Our youth no more respect the elderly; it seems they know more than their mothers and fathers know sexually. These are all the works of some of our musicians especially Daddy Lumba who has decided only to pollute the musical circles in this country,? Jacob Tetteh fumed.

It came out that our youth nowadays learn faster than their parents and if we need them to grow into responsible leaders, then we must help them learn good things through music and films so that when one day we are not there, they could take charge.

While some complain that some of our leaders who occupy big positions are those who spoil our children by going to bed with them at very tender ages, others argue that yet still, if we keep using our lyrics and movies to spoil them, we are not helping them any better as a society.

Genuinely, about ninety percent of our respondents expressed great distaste for musicians who use profane lyrics and advised that artistes who used good lyrics be awarded and songs with profane lyrics be disqualified from all award schemes, to discourage such musicians.

Philip Mensah of Tema was full for Obrafour for those wonderful lyrics, saying ?no wonder he was adjudged the Best Song Writer of the Year in the just ended Ghana Music Awards (GMA)?