The ace highlife musician in an interview last Monday revealed he took a break to make a family and is now back to music full time. He said shooting videos of these old hits is to make the youth today know the main person behind these songs and also re-brand it for the new generation because some are already enjoying them but don’t really know who is behind these hits and unfortunately give credit to some other musicians in the country thinking they composed them.
The pioneer of highlife who has being in the industry for decades and also has ten albums to his credit said most of his colleagues highlife musicians today are not recording because they feel with their experience they still have to stick to their recordings of full albums before coming out but the trend has change to releasing of singles now and he see nothing wrong with it. “Now to record a full album before promoting it has become very expensive but with singles you can easily enjoy some gigs and then go back to the studio to record the rest of your songs. One thing that I think has become a problem in Ghana is the fact that all the radio stations are trying to do the same or have the same programme line up. When you go to other countries we have each station and it’s style or kind of songs they play. Here we don’t have a highlife station, no hiplife station, so at the end of the day one sits on the other depending on what the public yarns for at a particular time and it not helping the highlife industry” he stated.
According to him most DJ’s on radio now are youngsters who also want to be hip because that’s what the listeners love to hear and so will not be playing much of these old highlife music to get some of his listeners tuned off and this is not helping. He wish each radio station brands it’s self with a kind of music in the country. He also noted that highlife is not going to die so radio stations should rather brand themselves with it to help promote what’s from home. “Now the industry is kind of crazy, it just dance and show your butts all over so people or musicians now don’t write songs and that’s how come we don’t enjoy good quality music’s anymore” he said. Referring to an article that quotes Amakye Dede saying highlife will die because the youth now don’t have it as a choice of music, he said he will agree with him on the fact that the youth now are not into it but highlife itself is never going to die. It is the root of Ghana music.
He further noted that Ghanaians should be proactive in their marketing of songs and acts from the country because that’s what keeps the Nigerians flying now. Our songs should advice, it should have content, and videos should be African, simple. It’s not about shooting expensive videos, but rather the content of your songs.
He advised the youth in music today to be very careful with their target audience, know who exactly they are composing songs for and should stop attacking each other with songs. “It not healthy for our music industry, we should be very positive because at the end of the day some songs are going to live, others are going to die. I enjoy the songs people are doing today and I love Sarkodie but we should be positive. In a few years to come, there are songs we can’t play them anymore. In composing my songs I think about making something ever green so people can enjoy just as they are enjoying songs I did about 10, 15 years ago” he said.
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