Music career not easy job – Nii Funny

Having a successful music career in Ghana is not an easy task and many talented musicians may not service the bumpy road, rising musician, Nii Funny, has stated.

“If musicians in Ghana would come out and truthfully tell their stories and the trials the go through, I’m not sure it would help in sparking some positive change. But the situation is bad yet because of things thing called branding and hype, we are all pretending it is okay. It is never okay and if nothing is done about it, our industry can never grow,” Nii Funny stated.

He continued, “There is no help from any sector or institution. If you are a Ghanaian musician, you are on your own. If you do not have strong links in the system, you would never get the shows no matter how your songs are good. In fact, the songs would forever remain on the streets and never get pushed or promoted on mainstream media for you to get the exposure. And when you talk about these issues, some people say you are talking because you want hype. The system is bad and it has to change.

“It is even worse when you do not have someone investing in your career. You may easily get frustrated and give up no matter how good you are. I think our situation is just like footballers who are very good but never get links to the national teams. Our society does not groom talents. They watch you struggle on your own and all they do is criticise, criticise and criticise and even when you try to do your best as a musician, our society is such that we tend to promote music from other countries, especially Nigeria, as if that is how Nigerians promote Ghanaian music in their country. But how far can my voice go when the elders in the music industry are all silent as if what is happening is right,” Nii Funny reiterated.

The rising musician said though he is yet to hit limelight, he is already feeling the frustration. “I have not been around for a very long time but already I can feel the frustration and I now understand why some of the best musicians we have had in Ghana grow old and become poor. It is not that they do not know how to invest. The truth is their intellectual property out there should be enough investment but the works are being used for free and very little is being done about it. Annoyingly, the very persons who use music for free are the same persons who laugh at music right owners for being poor,” he explained.

Nii Funny burst into the Ghanaian music scene when he was nominated to compete in the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMA) Unsung initiative in 2016 and has since maintained a steady rise in his career.

Same year, he performed on almost all the major music events across the country sharing stages with the big names in Ghanaian music.

In 2016, Nii Funny’s thump-card was his ability to blend jaw-dropping theatrics into his stagecraft and this earned him great reviews after his performance on several big events, including the Lords of the Ribs, S-Concert, Rapperholic, Citi FM #D2R2017, Ghana Meets Naija, Salafest ‘16 and several others.

Nii Funny in 2016 organised and headlined his own music concerts, notable among them are the ‘Gamashi Homowo Bash 2016’; a mega music concert to climax entertainment activities for the 2016 edition of the annual Homowo festival in Gamashi.

The historic concert attracted over 10,000 patrons and had performances from Ghana’s music heavy weights, including Supt Kofi Sarpong, Edem, Tinny, Wisa, Shiloo, Luther, Apaatse, Dunsin and several others.

He also organised several successful SHS tours and pool parties.

In the same year, Nii Funny released three major commercial songs- ‘Vuvuzella’ featuring Wisa Greid, ‘Odonkpo’ featuring Kesse and another music for development song, ‘Education’ featuring Spanky.

In 2017, he was nominated in the VGMA best new artiste of the year category.

Nii Funny currently has other attention-grabbing songs, including songs ‘Aaye’ featuring Teshieboi, ‘Lotto’ featuring Paa Kwesi and ‘Kaaye Nsane’ featuring Teephlow.