Deputy Minister for Tourism and Creative Arts, Mark Okraku-Mantey says Ghanaians can create a thriving environment to enable people visit the country to have a feel of the Ghanaian culture.

He made this known in an interview with Andy Dosty on the Daybreak Hitz Show.

Mr. Okraku- Mantey was responding to an assertion made by Kwesi Ernest, CEO of Media Excel that Ghanaian embassies overseas are not making it easy for Ghanaian music to penetrate there.

“Why do you think the Year of Return, we always make sure the art is vibrant in it? Because we do not need to always go there to perform to get the following. You can create an environment in your country for people to taste our music, food and fashion.”

He made reference to Amapiano, a recent genre of music that is making waves in Ghana.

To him, most Ghanaians got to hear of it on their visit to South Africa.

In relation to this, he urged Ghanaians to make the environment here conducive enough to enable people from the diaspora learn from us as we do not always have to go there to learn from them.

He highlighted the need for Ghanaians to make use of the “Beyond the Return” initiative made possible by his government to push Ghanaian music overseas.

“Today you say most of you are doing Amapiano. Amapiano, do you know where the root is from? It is from South Africa. And did they come here to play the South African music to you? It is when you visit them that is when you bring it. So when we create an environment like Beyond the Return where a lot of foreigners enter Ghana that is when we need to take advantage and sell our music to them.”