Obour, Richie and Okyeame Kwame Killed the Game

With various criticisms from people on the fact that hiplife is dying out at a snail's pace, musicians have no options than to either churn out a better music or respond to these criticisms that keep knocking at their doors.

To say hiplife is dying will be an issue of argument and that is what the Konkontibaa hit musician Obour, the poetic and prestigious artiste of the year Okyeame Kwame, and the producer of the year Riche sort to address in a hit single 'the game’ .

The song which is said to be a respond to some rumours in the music industry that hiplife is dying, has a crank beat produced by Riche. The chorus by Riche makes it clear the fact that musicians need to sit down and re-write the story again and refute the notion that hiplife is dying.

The track introduces the producer and singer, Richie hitting it hard on the long search for an answer as to when hiplife musicians are going to have a better share of the music they struggle so hard to produce but in the end earn peanuts for their hard work. Intermittently in the song is a powerful question and answer lay back lyrics from Obour and Okyeame Kwame.

Beginning his raps with the advent, rise and fall of Gospel music and the people that were accountable for it, Obour was not hesitant in exposing such attitude of people who think the industry has dwindled to its failing direction. Obour also in his lyrics talks about the need for musicians to set out standards that will make government and other cooperate bodies to step into the industry and cough out money to promote the industry.

He further identifies some of the reasons why the industry seem to be shrinking instead of making the impact that it’s suppose to have made in the past ten years.

He recounted the years when Hiplife artistes were seen as nobody. Maybe my recent encounter with Reggie Rockstone and Gyedu Blay Ambulley as to who is the originator of Hiplife will tell you the battle for originator still lingers on.

Okeame Kwame on his part employs a little bit of his usual poetic lyrical dexterity in bringing to light why some sections of the people consider hiplife as a dying venture in the music industry. he also speaks on the why some of his colleagues in the industry have made hiplife become like just any ordinary music rather than to advice and impact positively on society, an issue a lot of people raise eye-brows on.

The genre Hiplife which has survived all the odds in the past ten years has moved from trend to trend and people like Reggie Rockstone , the father of Hiplife , Obour, Okyeame Kwame, Castro, Kwadee and the likes will not sit down and see it die.

With the recent introduction of crank music by the young and diminutive producer of our time, Richie, a lot of people argued that his genre of music is only in to destroy and kill the efforts made to ensure the sustainability of Hiplife when a lot of up-coming artitste and well known artistes took keen interest in producing crank music instead of hiplife.

Artistes like Praye, Obour, Okyeame Kwame, Asem, Ayigbe Edem, 4x4, Bradex and several others have one way or the other released a crank single or a couple of them on their albums. This has become an issue of discussion in every corner of the music industry and earned the young producer the name 'King of Crank' until he came out boldly to explain the meaning of crank music and the need for the public to stop calling him King of Crank.

With the current artiste of the year Okyeame Kwame recording on his album the very crank song that made him won the prestigious artiste of this year's 10th Ghana Music Awards, one would see the future of crank music soaring into a higher heights as its patronage becomes higher and higher. Richie and a lot of musicians have also argued that the genre is not in to eliminate hiplife but rather add to the standards hiplife music has achieved in the industry.

Recently the artiste whose records this track was made, Obour organised a concert dubbed 'the resurrection concert' where a lot of artistes in the hiplife scene paraded the national theatre to share in a course well-defined to ensure that Hiplife in Ghana stays alive for generation unborn. A video clip of the song received a lot of airplay on television when the audio continues to enjoy airplay on radio.

‘Hiplife is never gonna die, hiplife is still alive…opposition go shy’. These were the very words that Obour ended the story of hiplife. Indeed hiplife has come a long way and believes whoever oppose it will definitely walk away in shame.