Hiplife artist, Tic Tac, has in an interview with enewsgh.com, bemoaned the lack of support for local artistes.
Among other things, he’s told this website that while colleague musicians in other countries are given the push in whichever form they need, those down here are constantly abused, side-stepped and overlooked.
“We Ghanaians build stars just so we have something in the near future to take apart. While other countries are building more and more artist to push their music and culture outside, we just build them and then turn around and destroy them again,” he says.
“Everyone who is established prefers to hide in their corner looking and hoping for the next gig. But what the industry is forgetting is when someone is a super star and they climb the stage, the exposure and experience will show and your audience will be entertained.
“What happens to Sarkodie and the many talents doing big things now after a while? Do we expect them to remain in the rising stars category? There are classes to this thing that we do, you become a rising, a star then you graduate into a super star.
“But Ghanaians always want you to be a rising star so they keep treating and paying you the rising-star kind of money no matter how long and how well you have been practicing this music thing.”
“Our main problem now,” he says”is that the industry is not defined and the lines that determine the stakeholders are blurred. There are a lot of people who pretend to belong to the industry just because of their own selfish interests and they know if they don’t create a false perception about the industry, they can’t survive in it.”
He adds: “The trend is that people create concepts and because they are not in for the wellbeing of the entire music industry but their profits and interests, they know if they come for me (Tic Tac) for instance, the price tag on my brand will cost them a little bit more than a newbie will charge, they will then settle for the rising stars promising them exposure and future business opportunities and gigs just to get those artists to accept the little budget they will give to them.”
“Meanwhile, the other established Ghanaian music brands are on the levels of D Banj, TuFace and the likes and need more resources than they needed when they were rising to be able to hang in there. The show organizers always come and want to use me for their shows, communication is always smooth until you start mentioning figures, and then all of sudden, chain in communication will start breaking.
“People won’t call when they say they will and excuses will start popping up and here and there and I wonder how they want us to make money to keep the people who work on our brands on the daily.”
“All this takes money and you can’t run a super star brand on a rising stars budget. No… At some point, you need specialist to take the brand to special places and you know in Ghana there aren’t enough PR companies who care about brands in the music, many of them feels artists can’t pay them.”
TicTac is however hopeful that with MUSIGA and NAFTI collaborating to reorient the Ghanaian musician through tailor-made courses, more musicians would be enlightened, and properly positioned to manage their respective careers.
