2017 difficult year for Ghana’s showbiz, Nigeria posed great threat - George Quaye

An entertainment critic, George Quaye, has said the year 2017 was a difficult one for Ghana’s entertainment industry especially in the area of movies and outdoor events.

According to Quaye, event organisers could not stand on their own strengths and had to rely on corporate sponsorship which was not easy to attract due to several limitations.

George Quaye was speaking to Nana Hemaa, co-host of Abusua Mmr3, the mid-morning entertainment show on Abusua FM in Kumasi.

He said, ‘with our music, I think we did fairly well as and it was great. New artists were introduced into the industry and they also performed creditably well.’

‘Artists such as The Kidi, Kwame Eugene, B4Bona, Ebony…I mean you name them, they all did very well and made us proud,’ he observed.

‘Shatta, Samini, Sarkodie, Stonebwoy all released great tunes and it added to their old achievements, I mean these are guys that are already celebrated in the industry.’

Responding to why Ghanaian artists failed to make an impact on the international stage in terms of awards and recognition, George Quaye said it is one of the major challenge that needs to be highlighted.

‘Nigerian artists have always beaten their Ghanaian counterparts to awards and recognition and I am sure until we do something differently in terms of investments and others, we will hardly catch up.’

‘We can never compare ourselves to the Nigerian acts because they do more collaborations with artists from other countries to get recognized and our people here don’t do that,’ Quaye revealed.

He has therefore called on Ghanaian artists to re-brand themselves well and do more collaborations as well.