Chief Executive Officer of Slip Music, Mark Okraku-Mantey has stated that highlife artiste, Akwaboah Jnr would have been a dead artiste if some young people had not appreciated his works.
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Akwaboah would have been a dead artiste – Okraku-Mantey
According to him, Akwaboah Jnr, one of the best songwriters and musicians in the country is fortunate to have some young people acknowledging his music.
Mark Okraku-Mantey, CEO of Slip Music
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His remarks come on the back of suggestions by a section of the public that the industry is flooded with substandard songs.
Okraku-Mantey who has produced several artistes including Oheneba Kissi, Daasebre Dwamena, Lord Kenya and Kumi Guitar has observed that artistes who do songs with good melodies most often do not get airplays as a chunk number of disk jockeys (DJs) subscribe to party songs.
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“Akwaboah would have been a dead artiste. We don’t play what he does. He was lucky to have had these young guys acknowledge his works,” he said on Hitz FM’s Daybreak Hitz Thursday.
Okraku-Mantey complained of how some records sang off-key get rotation because they are party song. He chided some beat makers for dwelling much on drums instead of learning how to play other musical instruments.
“The challenge is, those who write with such melody lines do not get airplay… Today, some people who program don’t even know how to play keyboard; only drums. Look at [a song by D Black]. Where is Vera now?... DJs just play music. They don’t make a statement with [their playlist]… There is this song that some DJs are playing even though it was sang off-key. The song ‘yewo krom’. During the days of Tommy Annan Forson, you dare not play such a song on air,” he added.
Okraku-Mantey disagreed with assertions that DJs playing party songs is a generational problem.
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“It is not a generational problem… Party songs cannot be deep. The songs that allow an artiste to express himself well are slow songs but the DJs won’t play,” he said.
According to Okraku-Mantey, songs from Oheneba Kissi, Amakye Dede, Nana Ampadu among others stand the test of time because of the good melodies, content and lyrics.
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