Reggae music in Ghana needs a facelift - Root Eye

The Director of Reggae and Dancehall for the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), Kwasi Nyarko-Ofei popularly known as Root Eye, has stated that Reggae music in Ghana needs a facelift.

Speaking to KMJ on his appointment, Root Eye said although he is yet to be told his job description, he was sure his office will be tasked to make the genre more appealing.

“It should be expected of me to move reggae music in Ghana forward. The idea is to give reggae music a facelift in Ghana because there has been some misconceptions towards reggae music so even though Ghanaians love reggae music to the bone, we still cannot generally accept our reggae music. A few people have even said if Rocky Dawuni had lived in Ghana, he wouldn’t have been recognised at the Grammys platform. So I think that there has to be a facelift,” he said on Daybreak Hitz.

Root Eye, known for his Heaviest Rain song, pointed out, the notion that any dreadlock wearing individual can do reggae would be looked into as one of the ways to clean up the system. He was unhappy that most Ghanaian reggae songs had no message to have an impact on the people.

“We need to do some works to clean the face of reggae music… It may include getting people who are not reggae musicians finding different jobs and moving away from reggae music. We also must clean the lyrics up. I think reggae music in Ghana has always been ‘burn this, burn that’ and you don’t hear anything. You can count only a few who are doing great music,” he noted.