Ghanaian disc jockey Michael Mensah Ashley, known as DJ Ashmen, has called for Ghanaian music to emphasize its unique identity.
He stated, “We have a distinctive musical heritage with Highlife and Hiplife, and we must be deliberate in showcasing it.”
“Forget global attention with ‘adopted’ music sounds that you are doing. I don’t know where the strong belief that doing foreign genre will give us global appeal is coming from.
“As a small country, Jamaica has been able to build a strong music identity with Reggae and Dancehall and we are happy to associate with it”, he tells musicians.
At a recent stakeholder meeting, Gyankroma Akufo-Addo, the Executive Secretary of the Creative Arts Agency (CAA), urged Ghana to cultivate a distinct musical sound to enhance its global presence.
She suggested that, like music genres linked to specific countries, Ghana should develop a unique musical identity to establish a stronger foothold in the global market.
DJ Ashmen believes the suggestion by the Creative Arts Agency is long overdue, particularly at a time when many things seem to have changed in the industry.
“Some of us saw the danger ahead and the devastating consequence for the music industry long ago when we realised that our artistes love and cherish foreign things than ours. I always receive bashing from beatmakers when I talk about this because they feel they know better.
“But I’m throwing a challenge for us to conduct research about Ghana music from the days of palm wine, highlife music, burger highlife originated by George Darko and even Hiplife, we have our identity in all these music styles.
“So the question now is, ‘why are we trying so hard to sound American, Jamaican and even Nigerian? Is it that we don’t value what we have?’” he queried.
DJ Ashmen agreed that the absence of a unique musical sound has been a major setback for the industry’s global appeal. He also criticized the increasing trend of Ghanaian artists moving away from traditional sounds in an attempt to gain international attention.
“We are here thinking our own Highlife is ‘colo’ because it’s local and old but we are happy to say we are doing Afrobeats. What is Afrobeats? Ghana has even lost the right to claim Afrobeats because we weren’t proud of our Highlife which is undoubtedly the roots of Afrobeats.
“And we continue to shout about global appeal and attention when the solution is staring us right in our faces. Like I’ve always said, the music industry lacks identity and it’s very bad for the future of the industry and the so-called international appeal we are all fighting for,” he stated.
