Sark to the slaughter?

Straight up! Obidiponbidi Sarkodie is leading his newly created clothing like, Sark to the slaughter, I think. I do not wish to compare Sark to other foreign brands but selling a belt at GHC180 and a pair of jeans at GHC250 is rather on the high side of his fans.

People are all under the illusion that anything sold at exorbitant price is good. Sarkodie and his team should not tow that line. They should not see the introduction of Sark as an opportunity for them to get rich quick or overnight. Else he might end up pushing everyone away.

Sarkodie’s Sark collections which include belts, baseball caps, sneakers, jumpers, sweat pants, t-shirts, shirts among others with his face embossed on them are ridiculously expensive. Before the launch which cost uninvited guests 50 Ghana Cedis a ticket, one of his fans commented, “Pay GHC50 just to be part of the launch, then how much will the clothes cost?”

We all know that Sarkodie’s real fans are not the people who are ready to part with big money. Yes, his fans cut across but a great chunk of them are the ones mostly on the street. I was present at the forecourt of the Aphrodisiac Night Club when Sarkodie launched his Sark clothing line designed by Yas.

Quite glaringly most of the invited guests present to witness the launch were not his true fans. They were there because they had received invitations from him or from his team.

After the launch many were the voices that commended Sarkodie for having taken an enterprising step by investing in business ahead of his colleagues in music. But a few months after the launch, keen observers are wondering if Sark will indeed survive or disappear like what happened to the likes of Stephen Appiah’s StepApp and Obrafuor’s OB4.

You know how painful it is when you do something good for someone and the person turns his back on you? This is exactly how the Sarkodie fans are feeling right now. They think the rapper is not being fair to them when they contributed to his successful career. For many of his fans, the artiste has become very expensive that, they have to dole out millions of their hard earned Ghanaian Cedis to be able to purchase few of his collections.

I’m certain that, Sarkodie has read various comments and posts by his fans as they vent their spleen on the expensive nature of his collections. From Twitter to Facebook, the words are that, Sark is very expensive. The reality is that if your true or majority of your followers cannot patronize your products because they are beyond their reach, it means you probably don’t know what you are about. As true fans, they are the ones to be clamoring for your products, if not then there is a problem somewhere.

As a rapper who has moved from being a ‘battler’ on radio stations to an international artiste, it’s fair to say he’s pricing himself out of the market but then has his management and team done a research to know the pocket strength of his real fans? Over-pricing the products just because you do not want just anyone to have one is a lame excuse and could be spelling doom for him.

Talking about paying people for the good they have done for you, I have listened to Sarkodie on various platforms as he elucidated and defended the over-pricing of his collections and I find such excuses very pitiful and preposterous.

On the red carpet of the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards with Confidence Haugen, Sarkodie said: “When you move out of Ghana, they need to hear your CV [talking about his music], what you have back home, you need a movement going on already. First and foremost, they will check your Twitter following, they will check your Facebook, they will check your awards and for me to have 5 on the roll that should tell you that, the guy is doing well…”

When Confidence asked “so how is the shop going?” Sarkodie said “Trust me from the first 3 days if I tell you the money we have made. People say my stuff is expensive. Of course you are wearing Sarkodie… we are coming for the next collections for anyone who can afford it.”

In 2012 Sarkodie co-won the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Best African Act with Nigeria’s Wizkid. Of course the organizers of the BET Awards didn’t pluck Sarkodie from Adom FM’s studios and award him.

It was after he got to the top of his game before they thought he merited that honour. The question is, how did he get to the top of his game?

He achieved this by the help of his true fans who have been with him from day one. So why would they be sidelined now that the act has gone to the zenith of his career?