Media personality, DJ Slim
Media personality cum entertainment pundit DJ Slim has called out Ghanaian artistes for their inability to reach the global stage, particularly in attaining Grammy Awards, unlike their Nigerian counterparts.
In a recent submission on his YouTube channel, DJ Slim highlighted the lack of collaboration, investment, and understanding of the music value chain as key reasons holding Ghanaian musicians back.
“There’s a long value chain right from the time the artiste gets the idea for a song to the songwriting, recording, marketing, and media runs. There’s a long list of people who need to be respected and paid. But artistes in Ghana think everything has to be about them. The reason why we are not getting there is that we don’t have that type of muscle,” he lamented.
DJ Slim criticised the common mindset among Ghanaian artistes, who often brag about succeeding on their own, and expressed disappointment in their unwillingness to invest in their work.
“Right now, the artistes like to brag that they did it all on their own. If the artistes don’t understand how the music system actually works, every time we will be going around in circles.
“We have artistes talking about how they won’t even invest in expensive music videos, and they will rather use the money for something different. These are the kind of artistes that we have in Ghana here,” he said.
DJ Slim further praised Nigerians for their understanding of investment and collaboration.
“Nigerians will forever lead the conversation because they understand the principles of investment and collaboration. But Ghanaians don’t collaborate; we don’t even have major artistes collaborating with each other,” he stated.
While acknowledging some improvement among the new generation of artistes, DJ Slim emphasised the need for greater efforts.
DJ Slim’s comments come on the back of the recent 67th Grammy Awards, which saw Nigerian singer Tems grab the Grammy Award for Best African Music Performance with her hit song ‘Love Me Jeje.’
Tems was the only African artiste to take home an award this year, with Ghanaian reggae icon Rocky Dawuni missing out on “Best Global Music Album” award.
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