Popular Ghanaian Entertainers – Kontihene, Ded Buddy, Mikkie Osei Aka Master Richard, Borax, Nana Quame & Others ‘Suffering’ For A Come Back into Limelight

If some celebrities or entertainers knew taking ‘leave of absence’ from the creative art or showbiz industry would only make them come back to their ‘first love’ and start from ‘class 1,’ they would have thought through their decisions carefully or not take such decisions at all!

What do I mean by entertainers who take leave of absence? I am referring to those who become popular in any of the arts field: movies, music, broadcasting, fashion, modeling, writing, etc. but for many reasons such as: furthering their education or pursue a course, relocate out of Africa to seek for greener pastures, shun media presence for personal reasons, amongst other reasons.

The ever finest Ded Buddy is back to music after many years of leaving the industry but the center is not holding for him. He came back to say he is rebranding so he wants to be known and called Cwesi but Ghanaians also say its Kwasi or Kwesi they know and can identify with and not Cwesi – hence he is an alien to them. Seeing that Cwesi is not working, he has gone back for his Ded Buddy but still, no one cares about him and his back and forth name changing!

The once popular and sought after Kontihene of ‘Aketesiwa’ fame, is also back to his first love after a decade of leaving the industry – unfortunately, no one seems to care whether he was once popular or not. His latest track has even been dumped somewhere to make way for new ones to get airplay.

Borax, who shot to fame with his collaboration with revered musician, Daddy Lumba, also thought he would have it easy after leaving the game for many years – but his comeback has been met with a huge disappointment.

Though Borax has tried to pass comments that could generate news, the current writers who were perhaps in JSS when he was in his peak, don’t find anything news worthy about what he opines or postulates, hence, no write-ups on him. He came in to defend a title: ‘I am the true king of Dancehall. These boys should step aside because I have come.’ Sadly, his new dancehall track has rather been stepped aside to make way for the new crop of dancehall artists to rule.

In the world of broadcasting, the ever exciting Mikkie Osei Berkoe aka “Master Richard” of ‘Taxi Driver’ fame who started broadcasting with Radio Gold many years ago, came back to the airwaves – starting with Adom FM. Mikkie came in with a gentle and smooth approach in his delivery on air, but, the Multimedia tracker kicked him out for being boring to their listeners.

Defending his new found style, Mickie Osei Berkoe came out to declare that shouting on radio is antiquated – forgetting that the shouting presentation style he started some years back (on Radio Gold) caught up with radio listeners for other radio presenters (like Abeiku Santana and others) to copy and has lingered on till date. Maybe Master Richard should blame himself for starting the noise and shouting presentation in the first place.

The very current one is Nana Quame who came in with a new track titled ‘Akye’ featuring Samini – whilst some pundits posit that the song is a run of the mill, others say the song’s recently released music video is humdrum.

Indeed, this ‘leave of absence’ has caused the career-fade or sunk the trademark of some of our celebrities to the extent that, some are just ‘wasting’ their talents at home or blaming current trends of doing things which can’t be washed away just like that!

From afar, I can tell most of these celebrities who took such leaves were deluded that they could leave and come back to ride on their past fame or records to propel their careers further – it does not work that easy and the reasons are many. Read below some of the reasons:

First, if you leave, you create a vacuum for your contemporaries who were doing equally good but could not get a shine at the same era with you, a space to fill. Aside that, more new entrants also enter to fill the space to the brim so when you come back, the space is crowded – you have to join the queue all again.

Secondly, when you leave, new styles of doing things are sired, so in coming back, you either have to come and join the new trend or come and bore people with your ‘kolo’ style or go on retirement forever or better still, come and criticize the new trends – no one cares about your long lectures as a ‘Methuselah’ in the game!

Thirdly, when you come back, more and more media platforms would have sprung up, so promotion and publicity (in the case of musicians) become costly than formerly. Lastly, some of the media people who helped you in the past might have lost their influential positions or shun media practice so you have to go through the stress of making new media friends who because they don’t know you from ages, would demand ‘nokofio’ else……

The possibility or probability of a popular celebrity taking a ‘leave of absence’ from Ghana’s showbiz industry and coming back to continue being relevant as one was, is very low – the facts exonerate the reality of my reflection. Only a few come back to break through – like what Buk Bak and Ronny Coaches did with ‘kolom.’

Even if our celebrities take leave out of the game, they should get a hard working publicist who will from time to time, register their presence in the eyes, minds, ears and hearts of the public through social media, print and blogs. Until then….MOTWUM!!