The Cambridge Dictionary defines respect as the admiration felt or shown for someone or something that you believe has good ideas or qualities.

According to Vocabulary.com, respect is a way of treating or thinking about something or someone. If you respect someone, you admire them and treat them well. Take this definition into consideration.
Among the countries in Africa, only a few are recognized as major music powerhouses.

These countries include Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania. Each of these countries has at least one artiste with worldwide recognition. Ghana has Sarkodie, Nigeria has Burna Boy, South Africa boasts of Tyla, Kenya has Khaligraph Jones, and Tanzania houses the King of the East, Diamond Platnumz. It is expected that as the leading countries in African music, these artistes or countries collectively maintain a good measure of respect for one another. They could express this through collaborations, endorsements, and mutual appreciation.

Nigeria seems to be carrying the continent’s music on its back for some years now, and it is reasonable to say that they have done a yeoman’s job. Some of the biggest records and even artistes from Africa are Nigerian. Nigerian by nationality, African by blood.

Ghana, on the other hand, is making a visible effort to cement her status as a stakeholder in African music. Ghana’s story is quite unique, because she has always been a stakeholder. However, other countries have put certain structures and systems in place that Ghana probably did not. Now, we have to fight for our seat at the table again. Mind you, we have always had a seat at the table.

Ghanaian artistes like King Promise, Black Sherif, Gyakie, KiDi, Lasmid, Stonebwoy, Shatta Wale, and Sarkodie have made conscious efforts to maintain, first of all, healthy and admirable relationships with their Nigerian counterparts like Burna Boy, Shallipopi, Odumodublvck, Davido, Ice Prince, Don Jazzy, and Phyno. It is relevant to note that these Nigerian artistes speak very highly of ours.

As Ghanaians, we get excited to see our artistes collaborate with Nigerians for their projects. In cases where the Nigerians miss out on our artistes’ projects, we get pretty upset. That is clearly understandable because we all know the impact Nigerians have on the statistics of our music releases.

As much as this may seem like a surface issue, deep within, our artistes are sometimes portrayed as lazy or irrelevant because their Nigerian counterparts have chalked up a lot more success than they have. To the extent that many believe it is impossible for Ghanaian artistes to win a GRAMMY anytime soon. Our artistes see these comments; their Nigerian counterparts equally see the comments, and evidently, they do not subscribe to such beliefs.

The real question is whether we respect our artistes as much as their Nigerian counterparts do, and whether our artistes even respect one another. The constant attitude of downplaying our artistes’ efforts, particularly due to the perception that their Nigerian counterparts are making “big moves,” is blatantly unfair. The music industry in Ghana does not have the kind of system whereby a good number of artistes can make such moves as often as we see in Nigeria.

The core of the article is this, the situation Ghana currently finds herself in does not, in any way, belittle our artistes in the eyes of their counterparts across the continent. Ghanaian producers have made smashing hit songs for some of these Nigerian artistes. The bigger problem here is the public falling for optics, which is understandable, but Ghanaian artistes command so much respect from Africa. Do we value them as much?

This piece continues soon…..