Renowned music producer Appiah Dankwah, known widely as Appietus, says no Ghanaian can be named among the top Afrobeat singers across the world and advises them to shun the genre.
He entreated local musicians to master the highlife genre and be known for it, just like how Nigerians are identified by Afrobeat.
Appietus made this appeal during a recent media discussion.
The sound engineer said that the idea of Ghanaian musicians competing with Nigerians over Afrobeats should even be a non-starter, as the Nigerians have earned huge and global recognition for their music style.
“Nigerians now own Afrobeats, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We will just be copycats if we keep on doing that. It’s going to be difficult competing with Nigerians on Afrobeats. It is just like how you can’t take dancehall and reggae from Jamaica,” said Appietus.
Listing some artistes names, Appietus said Burna Boy, Davido, Wizkid, Asake, and Temz would easily come to mind when Afrobeats artistes were mentioned all around the world.
“Certainly, it will be difficult for a Ghanaian artiste to make it to the top global list of favorite Afrobeats artistes considering that Nigerian artistes have taken the spots,” he said.
Appietus therefore encouraged Ghanaian artistes to stick to a music style that reflects their originality.
“And lately, I see people trying to blend Amapiano and Afrobeats to make it Ghanaian; that won’t work too. We will just be copycats if we keep on coming up with that mixture. Let us modernize Highlife the way we want, present it to the world, and see what will happen.”
“Let’s sell ourselves and culture and stop competing with others over their music genres. We have sold our music type before and Nigerians were nowhere close. So, we can do it again,” he added.
Source: Ghana/MaxTV/MaxFM/max.com.gh/Joyceline Natally Cudjoe
