ghanaian showbiz

lots of folks have varying views on the future of the music and movie industries here in ghana.....folks have been wondering why our music doesn't appear to be making inroads in other countries even in africa much less the west.

at the dancehall seminar @ alliance francaise on june 11, 2011, panji anoff who manages acts like wanlov kubolor, king ayisoba and yaa pono as well as being one of the most knowledgeable sound engineers and impressarios of our time said it's mainly cos we aren't original enough.

if it is reggae, we wanna sound more jamaican than the jamaicans themselves with no trace of ghanaian vibes, if it's hiplife or hiphop, we wanna sound more nigerian than nigerians or more american than americans.

in his view the likes of lucky dube and alpha blondy made it cos of their clearly african origins eg blondy sings in his native language and dube's use of south african rhythms and drum patterns distinctively southern african.

for our reggae artistes, they gotta take a cue from the music of roots anabo...the first african act to perform at reggae sunsplash..roots anabo played a fusion of reggae and what they called sunlife which is a funked up version of hilife reggae, distinct from the highlife of the 80's burgher hilife...this sound had all the makings of reggae but with a distinctively ghanaian feel to it.

the avantgarde grooves of tunes like brofo nyo bi, teacher tintin, singing in the name of the lord etc are case studies for budding musicians....

on the hiplife front....fusing the grooves of akyeame, obuor early day tunes and what reggie did with kyenkyen biara di ma wuo are all case studies on how to indigenise our hiplife for export...

for our movies, we need to look at what agya koo does and then polish it....humorous and interesting

i'll ask ama abrebese to do a piece on how to internationalise agya koo's movies since she's so in love with the dude's movies. with her experience and exposure, she should be able to indicate how best to pan our productions and then blend her know how with the suave swag of a a shirley frimpong manso and the abilities of a leila djansi blended with the coolness of the likes of akofa, david dontoh etc

more anon