{"id":22914,"date":"2024-07-24T16:10:25","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T16:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=22914"},"modified":"2024-07-24T18:16:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T18:16:00","slug":"foreign-genre-will-not-give-us-global-appeal-lets-be-intentional-about-our-highlife-and-hiplife-dj-ashmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=22914","title":{"rendered":"Foreign genre will not give us global appeal; let\u2019s be intentional about our Highlife and Hiplife \u2013 DJ Ashmen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>2 Minute, 33 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

Ghanaian Disc Jockey, Michael Mensah Ashley, popularly known as DJ Ashmen has joined calls for Ghanaian music to pursue it\u2019s unique identity.<\/strong><\/p>\n

DJ Ashmen explained that \u201cwe have a unique music identity, Highlife and Hiplife and we must be intentional about getting it out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cForget global attention with \u2018adopted\u2019 music sounds that you are doing. I don\u2019t know where the strong belief that doing foreign genre will give us global appeal is coming from.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs 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\u201d, he tells musicians.<\/p>\n

Brain Jotter meets \u2018Gwo Gwo Gwo Ngwo\u2019 singer Mike Ejeagha after viral dance challenge with song<\/a><\/p>\n

At a recent stakeholder meeting, the Executive Secretary of the Creative Arts Agency (CAA) Gyankroma Akufo-Addo, made a call for Ghana to develop a unique sound to build her musical identity to compete in the global market.<\/p>\n

She suggested that just as some music genres were associated with certain countries, Ghana needed to toe a similar line to build a strong music presence on the global market.<\/p>\n

DJ Cuppy loses grandmother<\/a><\/p>\n\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the question now is, \u2018why are we trying so hard to sound American, Jamaican and even Nigerian? Is it that we don\u2019t value what we have?\u2019\u201d he queried.<\/p>\n

DJ Ashmen equally agreed that the absence of a unique music sound has been a major drawback to the industry\u2019s global appeal, lamenting the increasing trend of Ghanaian artistes abandoning traditional sounds in the name of gaining global attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are here thinking our own Highlife is \u2018colo\u2019 because it\u2019s 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\u2019t proud of our Highlife which is undoubtedly the roots of Afrobeats.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we continue to shout about global appeal and attention when the solution is staring us right in our faces.\u00a0 Like I\u2019ve always said, the music industry lacks identity and it\u2019s very bad for the future of the industry and the so-called international appeal we are all fighting for,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

The post Foreign genre will not give us global appeal; let\u2019s be intentional about our Highlife and Hiplife \u2013 DJ Ashmen<\/a> first appeared on 3News<\/a>.<\/p>

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Ghanaian Disc Jockey, Michael Mensah Ashley, popularly known as DJ Ashmen has joined calls for Ghanaian music to pursue it\u2019s unique identity. DJ Ashmen explained that \u201cwe have a unique… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22968,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22914\/revisions\/22968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}