August 22, 2017
Music, just like any other business comes with its own problems and work hazards. When you hear the backstage stories of most of the successful artistes in the world, you will realize that they never had it easy in making it that big. But through perseverance and a bit of luck they are able to sail through the mud to be the stars that they are today. To succeed in this fast paced music industry you must always work extra hard, be smart and pray your star to shine one day. Majority of artistes fail to make it to top despite their efforts.
In this article, we will limit our scope to only music in Mamprugu. We have dozens of talented guys who normally don't get to the top as many predicted them to go. So the million dollar question people normally ask is; why are artistes not making it big in Mamprugu? Musicians, engineers, producers and fans at large can't give an answer to this question.
We at eazypromo.com have taken it upon ourselves to dig deep to find the possible answers. We've spoken with all stakeholders involved and we finally out with our findings. We have grouped this into three folds, that is the artistes, the fans and producers. Let's roll on!
Artistes
This group is the pivot in this discussion and our findings would have been incomplete without knowing from their end. Musicians in Mamprugu are generally reluctant and doesn't go the extra mile to promote their brand and songs. In this modern era, music evolves round technology and any artiste who wants to make it needs to be technologically inclined. But unfortunately, our artistes are performing zero in this regard. Music promotion has gone beyond only radio or TV airplay.
Artistes elsewhere make very good use of bloggers and social media content developers and it has worked perfectly for them. You don't expect a radio Dj in Accra, and other parts of the world to always get your music via WhatsApp. It is practically impossible.
You can only share your music on WhatsApp with only a few people, probably your close allies. But if you want to target the larger majority, you have to do it the blogger way. Get a few bloggers involved as you begin and expand the list as you grow. A Dj can search your music on google and links will be shown but if there's a "no results found" you will be added to the trash bin. In order to go beyond your vicinity, you must not limit yourself to only WhatsApp.
The artistes also compromise on quality when it comes to recording. Music also obey the GiGo rule. If you put Garbage in, you will get Garbage out, so the quality of your songs will tell people who you are and where you wanna go. If you are an artiste and you want to go far, you must not relent in your efforts to producing quality music.
Poor interpersonal relationship was also mentioned as one of the root causes of our artistes failure. The relationship between artiste and music promoters has always been poor and even the relationship between an artiste and a colleague is also nothing to write home about. This point is self explanatory and very useful even outside music circles. Good interpersonal relationship can help you go places with little effort.
Rushing for fame is also a factor. Artistes in Mamprugu always jump on shows whether invited or not just prove their worth. Fine! But the big question is, how much do you get in return? Nothing. I can authoritatively confirm that 99.99% of those performances are for free. Do we value our arts? We must put some value on ourselves if we want to get somewhere. Who will continue running at a lost in a certain business and wouldn't quit? But that is the sad situation we find ourselves here.
Producers
Music as a business can't survive without finance and it's obvious that artistes generally go through financial downtime when they're beginning their craft. Elsewhere, well to do citizens have interest in the Industry but in Mamprugu it's the opposite. This in my opinion is the biggest cause of the artistes inability to blow.
You can't get your music video play on TV without money, you can't get it on the blogs without money and you can't even get quality works without money. But I don't forsee this changing any moment soon unless miracle.
Fans
Fans act as the fuel for every artiste. Without a strong fan base, you are guaranteed to suffer a lot in this music industry. Unfortunately, fans in our part of the country don't patronize what they have. They prefer to throw their support to outsiders leaving their home base artistes. Tamale has been in the news because of the massive support the artistes get from the people.
The fans again are low profiled musically. They no little about music and that is the bitter truth. They are tuned to the riddim of Macassio and Fancy Gadam to the extent that they expect every artiste to sound like any of the two. Most artistes are falling to this bad precedence set by the fans.
Before artistes can go pass the Nasia Toll bridge then, they must consider learning the art really well, they should never compromise quality in their music, fans must learn to appreciate and embrace their "own", artistes must know that music promotion has gone beyond only radio and TV airplay, they must sit up and dare to move beyond their comfort zone, they must get bloggers involved, they must also get a powerful public relations team and last but very important, they must establish a very good relationship with promoters, colleague artistes and fans at large.
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