Ghanaian media personality and fashion designer, Kofi Okyere Darko better known as KOD has advised Ghanaian musicians to have their own identity.
According to KOD, even though Ghanaian songs are doing well internationally, he has a challenge with how Ghanaian musicians are not laying claims to their identity but want to sound like Nigerians.
Apart from being a well-versed media personality and fashion designer, KOD has also managed celebrated Ghanaian musicians such as Eazy Baby and defunct music groups Wutah and Praye.
From an artiste manager perspective, KOD, who was speaking as a special guest on popular lifestyle talk show, ‘Upside Down’ which is co-hosted by renowned broadcasters Frema Adunyame and Nana Tuffour on Citi TV in line with how he feels about how Ghanaian songs are currently making waves internationally said:
“We are at a great place as a country… Ghanaian songs are making a lot of impact on the continent…Afrobeat is everywhere, and I don’t have any problem with that because there is some element of Ghanaian music in that – but I believe as a people we should also have our own identity,” he quipped.
“I have a lot of challenge when our brothers try using slangs that are not even Ghanaian. We can understand even when the Nigerians try to say ‘ɔdo’ because every Nigerian that made it internationally came through Ghana… None of them made it through from Nigeria to the rest of the world so if they want our endorsement and use our slangs by saying ‘ɔdo” it is okay, we can go with that but for us to sound like them, I can go with that… We also have our own Identity, maybe because of their numbers they’re able to penetrate everywhere you go across the world,” he added.
The media personality and the fashion designer questioned that,”What happened to our hiplife and Azonto? We started with Azonto; we were not very intentional in doing azonto and the Nigerians took over…look at what they have done with it… We all know ‘Amapiano’ is from South Africa but look at what they (Nigerians) are doing with it… Sustainability has been our problem”.
He advised Ghanaian musicians to concentrate on their identity by focusing on genres such as hiplife and Azonto.
Watch the full interview below:
