Guinness concert organizers are disrespectful - 4×4

Boy group 4×4 have lashed out at event organizers and some corporate bodies, describing their sometimes rude and inconsiderate actions towards local artistes as most despicable.

In what could be described as a fiery Monday morning outburst, the trio poured their hearts out during an interview on TV3?s morning show, New Day.

A vituperation led by Coded (formerly known as Abortion), a member of the group, they managed to send out the strongest of signals about how unconvincing they and the larger body of local musicians were with the way things have been done in the past, and in recent years.

Calling out names, Coded mentioned the upcoming Guinness Concert on November 30, which is to feature Akon and Big Sean and some local artistes as one of such clear cases of disrespect for the local artiste. He wondered why the need to bring in the two American acts, when clearly it could have been handled by a crack core of local artistes.

Using a similar concert held by the company in Nigeria a fortnight ago, where only local artistes headlined it as case study, he insisted the idea to bring in those two acts, is completely out of place.

“You could make people tweet and ask them to sing a line of Big Sean’s song… they don’t know his songs.” He continued they should have put in at least … i know of only three giants in Ghana and they are Amakye Dede, Kojo Antwi and Daddy Lumba. They could have headlined the show because Guinness is a big brand.”

“The same thing happened with Shatta Wale … they said we wanted to see Elephant Man… And Shatta Wale killed the show… We want to tell Guinness that they are not doing enough. This is really like … you are really disrespecting we the musicians. It looks like we’ve not been able to come out and speak so every time they take us for granted.”

“They just come and disrespect musicians and they make us feel little … they belittle us. We don’t want to take anything for granted anymore. We’ve grown up and we believe it’s high time they respect musicians in Ghana.”

He asks “why is Sarkodie not on the bill, why is Edem, why is EL not on the bill, why is D Black not on the bill, why is even Kwabena Kwabena not on the bill, Bisa K Dei, Guru, all of those boys, making bad hits. Let us enjoy our own.”

“You pick this money and go and give it to Akon…FUSE ODG just won a MOBO award; you could have invited him to stage this show to make us feel like we enjoy our own and love it.”

Talking about how he used to go all the way to the Upper West Region by road just to perform during his early days in music, and how but for the intervention of some telcos, him and some of his colleague musicians wouldn’t be where they are now, he asked why Guinness didn’t find it smart to make some positive statement with their upcoming show.

“If you an alcohol company want to do something like this and don’t recognize we the musicians, it is bad.” A call that may trigger a rethinking of how things are done in the corporate and event organization world, locally, it follows similar sentiments expressed by Sarkodie over how he was treated in connection with the Guinness concert, also calling for greater respect for local artistes.

Other acts have in the past expressed same misgivings. As Coded noted, “It’s not funny at all.”