Ace highlife musician Ofori Amponsah has lamented that the invasion of Afrobeat, Amapiano, and dancehall, among other genres, has reduced the quality of Ghanaian music.
To him, there’s no new genre called Afrobeat, stressing that it is a rendition of highlife music that other countries borrowed from Ghana.
Ofori Amponsah made the claims during an interview with max.com.gh in Accra on Friday.
He observed that there was nothing new about the trending genres but emphasized that the lyrics are a mixture of pidgin and Twi, while the tempo of the song has been slowed as a touch to present it as new.
“There is nothing like Afrobeat; it’s a lie. One thing is that they slowed the tempo of the song. Instead of the tempo to be about 120-150 now it is about 98. But it is the same court, they only add pidgin to the lyrics so I don’t know anything called Afrobeat. It’s just a name,” he explained.
Touching on the sidelines of today’s music, the “otoolege” crooner observed that there were no longer technical people who would listen to songs and edit or shape them before releasing them.
That, he said, has enabled the current musicians to do anything at all and release them for public consumption.
Ofori Amponsah noted that the future was scary for Ghana as the identity of the country was lost in the kinds of songs singers composed.
In moving forward, he advised musicians to make conscious efforts to create authentic Ghana music with rhythms that originated from the country’s highlife to project Ghana well on the global market.
Source: Ghana/MaxTV/MaxFM/max.com.gh/Joyceline Natally Cudjoe
