Ghanaian rapper, Manifest, also known as Kwame Ametepee Tsikata, believes that Hiplife is dead and belongs to the past while ascribing a reason for this in a new interview shown on BBC.
According to him, the demise of the once vibrant genre is dead because young people are no longer interested in it.
He added that the shareholders and Practitioners of the genre have not evolved. He said this in the BBC-themed documentary dubbed Hip life Rewind uploaded on Youtube.
‘‘Hipelife is dead because the younger people, who are the source of the music, do not identify with Hiplife,’’ he shifted his seat and sat up.
In his opinion, Hiplife became too sophisticated to be understood culminating in its present state.
He said, ‘‘the originators of Hip-life were a little too precious about what it should be, so as new versions sonically were happening you could hear people saying, ‘‘Oh, this Jam, this Azonto. Is watered down, it’s not real,’’ adding that by insisting on the ‘‘idea of real’ ’these industry powers failed to recognize that ‘‘ you have to evolve or perish, and that is what any music form has to understand.’’
‘‘Those in charge of controlling hip=life refused to admit that the genre was evolving.’’ The situation must change.’’ he said.
Hiplife is a Ghanaian musical style that fuses Ghanaian culture and hip-hop. Recorded predominately in the Ghanaian Akan language, hiplife is rapidly gaining popularity in the 2010s throughout West Africa and abroad, especially in the United States, Canada, and Germany.
Story by Obaapa Janee
