Of Ghanaian Musicians Rather Than Studio Artists…………

Last Friday night witnessed the grand launch of the 2011 edition of the nation’s biggest music award ceremony, the MTN Ghana Music Award at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Accra.
There, the leading event company unveiled the nominations for various categories for the twelfth edition of the awards.
On the night, many lovers of good music and other supposed pundits in the Ghanaian music industry were convinced a new music star had been born after thirty minutes of astonishing showing by little known singer, Bless. He was a spectacle to watch as he dazzled audience with his powerful voice performance and stage work.
The question among the many of the guests present was: who is a musician? He became the subject of discussion among a company of friends l found myself in at the event. Some went as far as describing him as a star. I was obviously surprised at their description of the young man as a star. I therefore began to probe for their criteria for referring to the young man as a music star. As expected, their divergent views wholly reflected their personal interest coupled with their biases.
That discussion informed my decision to write this piece on how some people have wrongly confused the meanings of who is a singer and who is a musician.
A person who plays, composes, performs, conducts music and does that as a profession is recognized as a musician as defined by the Encarta dictionaries. Anyway, this definition appears inadequate and shallow for a musician.
It remains a fact that Ghana has became known around the world thanks to the exploits of the legendary Osibisa band, highlife musicians and other burger highlife singers in the past. Without doubt, they had something in common which runs through from the likes of Agya Koo Nimo, George Darko, Nana Ampedu and many more.
All these singers perfectly related to music and understood the several elements of music; they play musical instruments which they had vast insight about to produce harmonies which made their works cherished by lovers of alternative music around the world.
They embarked on global tours not to perform at ‘backyard shows’ for a handful of Ghanaians rather at major concerts for a worldwide audience. They played live music and were often than not backed by a band. They gave their audience value for their monies as they performed for them (I mean perform as in the word).
What can be said of the current group of recording artistes paraded on the Ghanaian music scene? It is rather unfortunate to conclude that we are not producing musicians lately, rather a bunch of studio artists and lost souls who accidentally have found themselves in music.
What do we see in recent times? These ‘so-called’ artistes will go on stage only to mime and expecting their audience to create fun for themselves after doling out huge sums of money to pay for entry tickets.
As if that isn’t enough, these artistes want the audience to boot their rhymes for them as they try to engage them while on stage. This is just irritating and unaccepted as these ‘half baked’ music makers are yet to realize these errors.
To all music executives, we need musicians and artistes who can carry our music beyond the shores of the nation rather than studio artistes who continually promote mediocrity.