Artiste manager Nana Poku Ashis has appealed to rappers in Ghana to make their songs more melodic to attract a wider Ghanaian audience.
According to him, the pure form of rap may be too technical for an audience that is used to catchy and melodic songs.
Speaking in an interview on Hitz FM on April 24, 2024, Ashis stated that the taste of the younger generation is evolving, hence, musicians needed to craft songs that were brief, rhythmic and catchy to quickly grab listeners’ attention.
‘Back in the day, you could play music for more than 5 to 6 minutes. But today, they go for just 2 minutes. What time do you as an artiste have to express yourself?
‘So they have to put it together rhythmically for it to become easy for people to catch.
He pointed out that in Africa, the tradition has been more about singing than rap, which was recently popularised by figures like Reggie Rockstone and other Hip-Life artistes.
He pointed out that melodic tunes are more likely to become hits and generate revenue than hardcor
e rap.
‘In Africa, our thing is not rap. We grew up singing. We didn’t grow up in rap till the Reggie Rockstones came in.
‘But even with that, if we go back to plenty of these people, their hit songs were when they made the song soft, not hardcore rap. To me, it’s not the rap that got people flowing, but that melodic thing in it was catchy,’ he explained.
Ashis advised creatives to create softer, melodic songs that resonate with a larger crowd, rather than complex or aggressive tracks that appeal to only a select few.
Source: Ghana Web
