I Performed On An Empty Stomach In Some Churches, Got Paid With "God Bless You" – Hanna Marfo

Gospel musicians in Ghana are the most confusing bunch of people. They are always singing about how God had rescued them from the pits of hell and poverty and prepared a table before them in the presence of their enemies. They go from eating gari and raw pepper to miraculously finding white collar jobs, generous husbands and giving birth to well-behaved kids, with the mandatory mansion adorned with plenty flowers, all because they “believed” in God and his perfect timing.
But apparently, their actual lives do not reflect any of that heavenly glamour. In fact, most of them live from hand to mouth and live their lives like the legendary church mice, starving in spite of being affiliated to the house of God. This is evidenced in the recent story of gospel musician Hanna Marfo who recently had to appeal to the general public for an amount of GHS43,000 to treat her ailing daughter.
Narrating how come she landed in such a sorry financial state after all her fame, the gospel singer revealed that the fame did not necessarily translate to cash and that she has been going through financial difficulties. This, she says is because Pastors often take gospel musicians for granted and are reluctant to pay them after they perform in their churches with the excuse that they are doing “God’s work”. Making these revelations on Light FM in Kumasi, Hanna Marfo explained that it was so bad that she sometimes had to go to bed on an empty stomach after performing in some churches.
“Sometimes you have to drink water to bed after you have gone to perform in a church”, she lamented. “No single church in Kumasi can tell me I charged to perform whiles I lived there. In those days, people paid me according to what they thought it was a good wage. Sometimes you have to drink water to bed after you have gone to perform in a church, you see…I have performed and gone to bed with no food. Even common transportation they won’t offer you”.
And it was not just one church that treated her this way. According to her, it is very common practice for heads of churches to take gospel artists for granted. “Lots of them, all they say is God bless you. I don’t know if the trend has changed this time, but previously, some were doing it”, she revealed.
In hopes of raising the money needed for her daughter’s surgery, the struggling musician has released a new album which she will hopefully make some money from.