Rocky Dawuni
Ghanaian Grammy Awards nominee, Rocky Dawuni has rubbished claims that Ghanaian music is not gaining international recognition because most of the songs are sang in local languages.
According to him, people are more interested in the melodies and rhythms and do not necessarily need to understand the language to appreciate a song.
“It's your culture and your language so you have to do your music in that context. You can sing a song where people don't understand it but they will love the melody and rhythm and it will cross borders to everywhere,” he explained.
Though the reggae artiste who has most of his songs in English, agrees language is important in music, he emphasised that there's more to music than language. What you have to do is to also embrace other aspects of global culture and be able to integrate them in there to really expand the reach of the music.”
Rocky Dawuni gave the explanation during an interview with Hitz News when he was talking about his homecoming concert scheduled for Friday, December 18 at Alliance Francaise, a show, he says will set the tone for the Christmas holidays and the 2016 general elections.
The 'In Ghana' singer said the concert is to celebrate the achievements of his sixth album 'Branches of the Same Tree'.
He said, “I felt that there needed to be a homecoming concert where we can celebrate the achievement, but I didn't know what God had in store for me. A few days later, we heard of the Grammy nomination and I feel humbled, elated and also thankful.”
Rocky Dawuni’s sixth album ‘Branches of The Same Tree’ has been nominated in the ‘Reggae Album of the Year’ category alongside, Barrington Levy, Luciano, Jah Cure and Morgan Heritage for 2016's Grammy Awards.
The Ghanaian musician is known to have a close relationship with Bob Marley’s family. Speaking on his relationship, Rocky said, “We've been acquaintances and friends and I've been involved a lot with the brands doing events with them, I even did a concert in Las Vegas for the House of Marley. It's spread in positive music.”
Rocky Dawuni also hinted of possible collaborations with Stonebwoy, Shatta Wale, Wiyaala and many other young Ghanaian artistes to use the international recognition he has gained so far to draw attention to them too.
