Ghanaian sound engineer and music producer, Appietus, has given a piece of advice to his fellow artists.
He suggests that instead of trying to compete with Nigerians in the Afrobeats genre, they should focus on promoting Highlife.
Appietus believes that Afrobeats is mostly associated with Nigeria, and the world’s top Afrobeats artists such as Burna Boy, Davido, Wizkid, Asake, and Temz are all Nigerians.
According to him, it’s quite challenging for a Ghanaian musician to become a recognized name on the global list of Afrobeats artists. He also mentioned that attempting to blend Afrobeats with other genres, such as Amapiano, through imitation, would not yield a positive outcome.
“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,”
A piece of advice given by Appietus to Ghanaian musicians is to concentrate on promoting Highlife, a music genre that embodies their uniqueness, instead of attempting to outdo Nigerians in the realm of Afrobeats, which they have already established dominance in worldwide. Additionally, he suggested that Ghanaian musicians should modernize and popularize Highlife, a music genre that has been successful in the past and is deeply rooted in Ghanaian culture and history.
“Let’s sell ourselves and culture and stop challenging 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.
To sum up, his suggestion to Ghanaian musicians was to prioritize highlighting their distinctive culture through Highlife, rather than trying to compete in genres that are already dominated by other countries.
Story by Obaapa Janee
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