Ghanaian Musicians: The ‘Award’ Is Their Limit

The Ghanaian music industry has grown but the musicians have refused to grow past a trophy – the awards.

Music is big business BUT in Ghana, it is always ‘business as usual’ – nothing extra ordinary, ‘let’s follow suit’ and the laid back attitude of majority of Ghanaian musicians do not make the music business very enterprising.

Winning an award is the limit for majority of these Ghanaian musicians -the sky is not even their lookout. They don’t dream big and far, and that is why Ghanaian music doesn’t cross our borders; just a few make the attempt but how far do they even go?

After one award, they think they’ve ‘got there’. When a musician is awarded for a job well done, it should be the starting point of making great music, not the beginning of crap songs.

The focus is so much on the awards that they don’t bother making good songs to stay on top of the game. Surprisingly, some of these crap songs turn out to become hits.

Most of these musicians even win awards with the crappy songs they make (my opinion), and the good promising ones are either overlooked or only given nominations to keep the critics quiet. 

R2Bees not winning the BET award may be a blessing in disguise, because I’m very sure if they had won, they’ll also start spewing crappy songs. Maybe, they might work hard to be noticed next year – until then….

After Samini grabbed a MOBO award in 2006, has he even bothered to aim higher? Sarkodie is another good example.  After sweeping almost all the awards at the Ghana Music Awards last year as well as a BET Award, if he had worked harder on a good song to obtain another nomination at the BET, he would have reached a wider audience than before.

But what has he been disturbing us with lately, crappy songs of how he started and bragging about his achievements. This year was even a no-show for him. Kings reign until they die, when they’re de-stooled, it is problem.

An Award is not a ‘retirement trophy’; it is a pat on the back to make you work much harder and aim higher. It is not meant to be won, lay back and enjoy in the glory while making noise in the name of music.

Nobody is indispensable, everybody is in a replaceable situation and if the music is their business, they need to stay relevant with good songs.

Some of the players in the music industry just don’t like to be criticised. They don’t take nor tolerate criticism. Alas, they’re there for the award, so whatever you say is a personal attack or simply you’re a hater. With this attitude, how can they go far?