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When the 90’s ushered us into the era of Hiplife , Kumasi became its beacon. Oseikrom was massively behind Hiplife’s success. I still remember the days when musicians, producers, sound engineers constantly said: “if your song is accepted by Kumasi, then it has been accepted by the whole nation”. Kumasi was the kingmakers in dictating which musician worn an award. I still remember those times when Hiplife musicians used to launch their albums in Kumasi. That is certainly not the case today.  For instance, it was surprising to know that Praye’s “Angelina” was really popular in Accra weeks before people in Kumasi even recognized. Some few weeks ago, majority of people in Kumasi did not even know who Sarkodie was.

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One of the overlooked elements in terms of making a movie (as far as most African movies are concerned) in its entirety is the WARDROBE. Though awards are handed out for doing an excellent job of finding or creating precisely the right clothes for the cast of a movie, it seems movie makers and actors still do not grasp the significant role a wardrobe plays in the overall quality of a movie. Why this article? It appears more and more newly released movies are becoming more centered on fashion taking away from the movie concept. The problem with this ongoing “Fashion Shows” is that, they are not complimentary to the movies.

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The above named question sounds like a million dollar question but trust me am not that dumb to ask such a thought provoking question. I decided to write this piece because the question ‘do gospel musicians pay payola’ has been with me since I was that little-fun-boy and now that I have grown up and almost going bald. I get confused anytime I ask that question because I do not get the answer I was anticipating, and what answer was I expecting? Read on.

I ask that question because I have observed over the years that it is only in Ghana Music Chart (I stand to be corrected if am wrong) that you see only the music we call secular (worldly) music always topping the chart at the expense of the gospel musicians and it is even more strange because Ghana has a lot of gospel musicians and the number keep increasing day in, day out.

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Reggie Rockstone has been acclaimed as the originator of hip life music in Ghana but it is very astonishing up to date to vividly understand and unquestionably know what song falls in the genre of Hip Life. The definition of hip life seems very controversial as much as who started it.

I can boldly say without contempt that, the Ghana Music Award Committee even cannot clearly distinguish between a hip hop and a hip life song. The Afro Pop musician, Wanlov the Kubolor recently expressed his distress about the named committee categorizing his song “Konkonsa” as Hip Hop whiles he believes the song is more Hip Life than most that were selected as hip life.

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Ghana Music Award Artist of the Decade, Kojo Antwi has described the GMAs as too commercial, saying that he wished that Charterhouse/planning committee could a separation between making profit and rewarding excellence. He said this on TV3’s Spotlight when he was talking about how he feels about winning the award.

He said he wished that the artist of the decade was not a competitive award, and that instead the organizers should institute a system for rewarding lifetime achievements in the music industry, as it done all over the world. He also added that it wasn’t right for Charter House to measure the achievements of artists like himself, Ambolley and others by the achievements of the GMAs.

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