The government, under the leadership of the Vice President and flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party(NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, inaugurated a new music streaming platform named Ghana Music Xperience (GMX) on Wednesday, October 30, 2024, at De Icon Centre.

The app, launched in partnership with a private company, GMX Multimedia, and designed by Omni Strategies had support from the Ministry of Tourism Arts and Culture.

In his speech at the event, Dr. Bawumia expressed his hope and confidence of helping boost music business in Ghana with the partnership.

However, music producer and tech expert Kobby Spiky Nkrumah is doubting the effective functionality of the app, even though the Vice President has assured.

Speaking on Joy Prime’s Prime Morning Show, he explained that the majority of industry players, including musicians and managers, particularly those in rural areas, are not well acquainted with the already existing streaming platforms and have not been properly educated and trained on the processes involved in using the apps.

This makes the GMX App a failure even before it commences operation.

“There’s a lot of education that needs to be done for our musicians. I’ve been doing stuff with MUSIGA and going round the regions training them on understanding the power of digital marketing and solutions to benefit them and their craft and to put their content out there. You would realise that there’s a lot of knowledge that’s lacking, and so people are suffering today because someone is monetising their music, uploading their music on their behalf, or earning royalties from their music from Spotify, YouTube, and the rest because they don’t know how it’s done.”

“So you’ve brought GMX; now every musician in the rural areas who would have made music and are looking for a way to put it out there, how are they going to put their music on GMX? All these questions need to be answered. They don’t even know how to get their music out there. They rely on people to do it for them, and most of the time they get cheated out of their royalties or streaming numbers. So that problem has not been fixed; GMX may be failing on arrival because a lot of people will be holding their music and asking where they are going to put their music on GMX,” he told Kofi Hayford on Joy Prime.

The tech expert thinks thorough education, training, and empowerment should have been done at the conceptualization stage of the initiative before its launch. He asserted that 90% of musicians across the country will not be able to access the app when operation begins. 

Kobby Spiky also highlighted that the government needs to consider the business aspect of the app, as advertisers and subscribers are involved but have unfortunately not been informed about its financial benefits in order to patronize it 

“How many advertisers are going to spend on GMX? How many subscribers are going to subscribe to GMX? Because that is what is going to generate the revenue you’re going to share across these artists who are on this platform. It’s going to get to a point where the money is not enough, and some people are going to be like, How much do I even make on GMX? So, we need to think about the business model of it. That’s why I said it’s dead on arrival,” he reiterated. 

The music producer reemphasised that a lot of incentivisation needs to be done to convince people to patronise the app, making it effective and relevant, especially since it will be in competition with other international platforms. 

He suggested that the app should not be limited to only Ghanaian creatives but should be expanded globally to attract more users.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Music Xperience is expected to be operational from January 2025.