Wei Ye Oteng
Wei Ye Oteng has recalled how, over the years, Ghana visiting or living in Ghana has taught and inspired several music superstars from Nigeria.
The popular music producer and instrumentalist spoke on Entertainment Capital, Saturday, July 22, 2023, on Accra 100.5 FM.
“If we ignore that creativity is the base, and we need to be original, the Nigerian sound will keep moving [ahead of us],” Wei Ye Oteng asserted.
The reasons, he explained to host Nana Romeo, are: “They have the people, they are producing more, they are moving ahead, their sound – they have the money…”
He reminded the audience of a time when the likes of “Tony Harmony and 2Face Idibia [now 2Baba]” would drive all the way from Nigeria to Ghana and go to a studio like “Hush Hush” to work.
Nigeria’s Highlife superstar “Flavour N'abania,” he revealed, “has slept in my studio for about a week before. Ask Ricky Anokye who brought him to my studio.”
He rhetorically asked: “Why do all these people come here to gather momentum and the fundamentals and go and make it? [It’s] because we have the originality but we are failing to practice it.”
On the other hand, Nigerians “have the numbers and when they pick [our things], they can capitalise on it.”
He cited when Chris Brown went on the 106 & Park stage in 2013 and intimated Azonto is from Nigeria “meanwhile, we [Ghanaians] made it”.
“Let’s be original, let’s create our own stuff and stop falling on too much loops,” he admonished Ghanaian music makers.
“I’m not saying it’s not good,” he clarified, stressing that his point is to moderately use foreign music samples and loops.
