Kofi Adjorlolo
Veteran Ghanaian actor Kofi Adjorlolo has said that payments by musicians to disc jockeys (DJs) and presenters as a condition precedent to promoting their songs is not new but an international practice that even exists at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and goes back to many years.
“When I travelled abroad, I realised that payola was something that existed there. Even at the BBC, there is payola. Payola did not even originate from Ghana, it is an international term in radio and can even be found in the dictionary,” he noted.
Mr. Adjorlolo, who was a guest on Accra 100.5 FM’s Entertainment Capital on Saturday, June 11, explained to DJ Premier that before he started acting, he was a musician and also worked at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) as a presenter.
“After my sixth form education, I became a professional musician playing with a number of bands including that of Nigeria's Victor Uwaifo of Joromi fame.
“In between my stay at GBC and working for Media Number One, I was offered a job as a Marketing Manager at Peace FM. After eight months, I was called by the current ambassador to Benin, Mr. E. K. Adu, to assist in the establishment of another radio station, now Channel R.
“Later my cousin, Richard Prempeh, the Executive Producer of Taxi Driver, asked me to write scripts for the series and possibly join the cast. That is how I entered acting.”
Responding to a question about whether he had taken payola before as a presenter, the 61-year-old actor answered in the affirmative and recalled one occasion when he received payola from Daddy Lumba’s camp, which, he said, was satisfactory at that time.
“The first time I took payola that was very satisfactory was from Daddy Lumba’s camp. The payola was paid for me to promote ‘Yeeye Aka Akwantuomu’, which was on the album of the Lumba Brothers,” he disclosed.
He further explained that because he was a musician and had worked with a couple of people including AB Crentsil, Kojo Antwi, George Darko, and CK Mann, there was no payola involved when they brought their music to him to play at GBC.
“If I could remember, it was Daddy Lumba’s mother who gave me the song to play on GBC radio. I love Lumba so much and he is a gentleman, but I did not like the song when it was given to me at first. I later travelled abroad and when I attended any party, Lumba’s song was the most played, so when I came back to Ghana, I even played it more than the duration I was paid for me to promote on the air.”
To him, payola is not necessarily a bad practice.
Mr. Adjorlolo has featured in several movies including God Loves Prostitutes, Mummy's Daughter, My Mother's Heart, Official Prostitutes, and Ghana-Nigeria collaborations such as My First Experience, Golden Adventure, and Power of the Gods.
He has starred with renowned actors like Ini Edo, Genevieve Nnaji, Patience Ozorkor, Ramsey Nouah, Emeka Ike, Olu Jacobs and Ikem Owoh, aka Osuofia.
