Entertainment journalist, Arnold Asamoah Baidoo has disagreed with Dancehall artiste, Shatta Wale’s claims that the lack of a unique genre is a major setback for the Ghanaian music industry.
“Not having one genre is not our setback. Do you know what our setbacks are? Lack of publishing, lack of distribution, lack of labels, poor royalty system, piracy, funding, these are our setbacks,” he said
Speaking on United Showbiz Saturday, he stated that the fact that artistes like Shatta Wale have grown their brands, earned money, and gained many opportunities while making music in Ghana, indicates that the industry’s setback is not the absence of a unique genre.
Arnold was responding to a statement made by Shatta Wale when he delivered a ‘state of the Industry’ address on Wednesday, June 2. The Freedom singer said in the address that, “One of the things I find to be a major setback in the Ghana music industry is a unique genre that can be solely attributed to us as a people.
I was in business meetings with different foreign stakeholders, and investors in the US, and one question they all seemed to ask was, ‘what kind of music do Ghanaians do?’.”
The Dancehall act, therefore, recommended that Ghanaian artistes should focus on producing more highlife music.
However, he stated that the call for one genre in the industry is a fallacy, citing Nigeria and South African music industries as having many genres yet filled with global artistes.
“Go to Nigeria, they do not have one genre of music. Sunny Ade took juju music to the Grammys, Femi Kuti, another Grammy-nominated artiste took Afrobeat, Burna Boy who recently won a Grammy took Afrobeats.”
Having one unique genre is the least of the problems in Ghana’s music industry, the entertainment critic said.
