Is The Ghanaian Music Industry At A Crossroads?

Music is a fluid commodity, shapeless, timeless, and boundless with an ever-flowing wave that reflects the ideologies and lifestyle of a people or society. However, the categorization and defining moment of where a sound emanates from is where the term ‘genre’ comes into play. Just like Hip-hop emanates from the US, Amapiano from South Africa, Highlife from Ghana etc, for once we witness a perfect cocktail of different soundscapes from two different regions to form a mainstream genre taking over the world. It is a well-established fact that these two countries (Ghana and Nigeria) have always found a way to tap into each other’s soundscape, eventually birthing Afrobeats. The unique five-beat highlife pattern and Afro lyricism subject to our environments and experiences is what the fast-rising Afrobeats genre is embedded in. Objectively, I wouldn’t put it past the Nigerian music ecosystem to be better marketers of the genre than their Ghanaian counterparts.The Ghanaian music industry is currently at a crossroads, a time where Afrobeats is gaining global attention due to the exploits of Nigerians. It is a matter of great concern for constant conversations and a game of whack-a-mole with where the Ghanaian music industry stands when it comes to the genre, and what it can do to enjoy the fruits of the Afrobeats harvest. However, in sharp contrast to such conversations is that, Ghanaians have been annexed by our neighbors and as such it would be best we move away from the whole Afrobeat conversation and champion our sound and narrative.

“Without structure, continuity is fickle!”

FOURTH AVENEW.

Regardless of the various viewpoints about Afrobeats, the idea of benefits most people think of is that the Ghanaian music industry gets the same slice of fortune the Nigerian music industry is enjoying. It is possible to attain the heights being hit by the Nigerian counterparts and go a step further to make a mark that showcases the prowess of the Ghanaian talents globally, but there is a lot that comes to play when it comes to the exploitation of a sound.
A glaring problem that runs through the Ghanaian music ecosystem is the lack of structure and curriculum to guide stakeholders to break the ice of international stardom. For something to enjoy sustainability and stand the test of time, there’s the need for a framework, a blueprint that transcends generations. While the Ghanaian music industry still has a lot to gain from joining the whole Afrobeats campaign as it is, it may seem as though there is a subtle wave of acquiescence by a section of the Ghanaian music industry as it loses the opportunity to reap bountiful benefits of the Afrobeats wave but should rather start amplifying its sound. While that is a laudable idea, unfortunately, there seems to be blurred lines in the approach and execution. Every conversation being had around the prospects of Ghanaian music have all pointed to maintaining the status quo of highlife being its mainstream genre. While it can be agreed that Highlife music has been the bedrock of the Ghanaian music industry for decades, there have been recent amplifications of other borrowed genres from across the world; seeing that these genres have achieved remarkable milestones in pushing Ghana’s identity across the world.

Over the last decade alone, we’ve seen Ghanaian talents exhibit impeccable prowess of versatility tapping into Reggae/dancehall, Trap, Drill and to some extent, Alté. Two of Ghana’s biggest artistes over the last 10 years are all Reggae/dancehall artistes, furthermore, in the last 3 years, we have championed a Drill revolution called Asakaa; which has been noticed by the Grammys and given its slot under the new African Music category by the award scheme. With all these recent milestones, it would be a persistent blunder to discard the prospects these other genres possess in pursuit of pushing just a single genre.
Ideally, the phenomenon of traveling sounds should be able to encourage the ecosystem to adopt and embrace the diversity of various niche sounds to push music and deliberately foster music communities instead of unconsciously championing ‘egosystems.’ The system should be able to allow indie talents to tap into niche sounds and master what they can and run with it. There should be a push and support for these versatile artistes to always find ways to market these genres so there can be options for people who cannot necessarily fit within a mainstream genre like Highlife.

Unfortunately, the Ghanaian music industry finds itself in a maze of sound calibrations and diluted definitions of what the African sound is and should be, it is almost standard to refer to every music from Africa as Afrobeats nowadays. It is an opinion well espoused such that most indie African artistes have been boxed into genres or sounds that define less of their originality. Lately, the sentiments from indie African artistes appear to be a quagmire of what to call the kinds of sounds they create. Many artistes have either had to botch their creative expression for mainstream sounds or succumb to the wholesale categorization of what their music is, and not for purposes of awards, charts, and marketability. It is amusing and disturbing when most African stars are asked what kind of music they make and all you hear are different categorizations of their creative sound, especially different from what their consumer base know them for.

In truth, these artistes are not entirely to be blamed for this mishap because technical conversations around the categorization of sounds shouldn’t be left to the artistes alone. The confusion is far up the ladder of creating and marketing music. Most digital streaming platforms (Apple, Spotify, Tidal etc) have either one or two categorizations of music for African artistes. If it’s not Afrobeats then it’s probably Amapiano.
Recent outrages and conversations around Afrobeats by top artistes and pioneering subgenres like Afro-fusion speak volumes to the glaring lacuna within the African music ecosystem and the subtle reminder that, we are placing all our eggs as a music community in one basket. It may seem as though the utterances from artistes like Burnaboy about the genre are corroborated by a section of artistes themselves. Subconsciously, many indie artistes with the aim of breakthrough find themselves altering their original style and melody to fit trendy or mainstream music for marketing purposes. The nature of music reiterates that these classifications are often arbitrary and controversial and that some genres tend to overlap one another resulting in being captured sometimes as fusion genres.

With about 3,000 tribes and approximately 2,000 languages and dialects, it’s fascinating that Africa is blessed with the most diverse soundscape from various regions and tribes. As a continent blessed with many sounds, the African artiste is poised to exploit and demonstrate to the global music community that African music is bigger than just a scanty jukebox the rest of the world likes to lump them all into. The crux of this debacle remains the phenomenon of traveling sounds, overlapping genres, and vast soundscapes providing huge leverage to indie artistes to experiment as much as possible while also understudying the focal elements of music genres to define their creation appropriately.

In conclusion, living within a bubble of single genres poses a dicey situation such that over or under-exploitation of talents within specific genres poses a risk of fading away African talents en masse.

Written by: Nana Kojo Mula and Allen Kwesi Adjei.