Music producer Justice Oteng aka Wei Ye Oteng has acknowledged the importance of Ghanaian artistes identifying with Afrobeats.
He has intimated that it makes more commercial sense for highlife artistes in Ghana to brand their songs as Afrobeats than to label them as highlife.
Speaking to Kwame Dadzie on Joy FM’s Twitter Spaces programme, Oteng said although there is pride in preserving highlife which is of Ghanaian origin, the artistes are allowed to get into what will earn them recognition and revenue.
“There are more markets out there and whenever you hashtag your beat ‘Afrobeats’, because more people are searching for ‘Afrobeats’ by the day, you get a quicker market. So even if I produce a highlife beat, and I take it to a place like YouTube to sell, I’m not going to name it highlife. That is not going to be my prime objective because I know how many people are coming to search for ‘highlife’ beat. They are limited,” he said.
He reiterated that Ghanaian artistes who have joined the Afrobeats bandwagon cannot be blamed for aligning with a well-marketed movement which has gained international dominance.
Oteng made this submission when he joined a panel comprising ace highlife musician Rex Omar, singer Abiana and broadcaster Austine Woode on 'Joy Entertainment Unpacked' for a discussion on what to do to preserve Ghana's highlife genre.
He is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Drumline Studios. He has worked with artistes such as Obrafour, Trigmatic, Barima Sidney, among others. He also produced four tracks on Rocky Dawuni’s Grammy-nominated ‘Voice of Bunbon Vol 1’ album.
Latest Stories
-
Nigeria court frees 119 protesters after government drops charges
21 seconds -
French families sue TikTok over harmful content
12 mins -
Slapping MP shows generational change may not end abuse of power in Nigeria
23 mins -
Zimbabwe bans police from using mobile phones while on duty
35 mins -
Killers of Ugandan Olympian sentenced to 35 years
47 mins -
Elon Musk to spend election night with Donald Trump
51 mins -
Accusations fly in Spain over who is to blame for flood disaster
59 mins -
UCL: Real Madrid lose to AC Milan in second straight home defeat
1 hour -
Queen Camilla cancels events due to chest infection
1 hour -
Economy is growing below potential – IEA
1 hour -
UCL: Gyokeres hat-trick as Amorim’s Sporting thrash Man City
1 hour -
Equatorial Guinea VP warns against office sex after viral videos
1 hour -
Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe
2 hours -
UCL: Diaz nets hattrick as Liverpool beat Leverkusen
2 hours -
Israel PM Netanyahu fires defence minister Gallant
2 hours