Kwami Eugene and Tic
In Africa, Child-nurturing is not really seen as an "unconditional responsibility" of parents to a child but a kind of agreement or "conditional responsibility" of "I take care of you, you take care of me in future when you reach adulthood.”
This culture of "conditional responsibility" by parents is deep rooted in all aspect of the socio-economic life of Ghana.Be it politics, business or in the entertainment industry.
My focus is on the entertainment industry, specifically the Ghanaian music industry.
In the past and even at our present time, we see established musicians featuring budding musicians or even being featured by budding talents to release songs.
This, they do, too often introduce the up and coming artists to the industry.
An example can be mentioned of Guru and Obrafour "Kasie bo" collaboration in 2010.
This collaboration undoubtedly shot Guru to the fame as an underground artist.
Similarly, Sarkodie, the self-acclaimed "King" of Rap in Ghana and Ayigbe Edem established their presence in the Ghanaian music industry after releasing their song, "You dey Craze", which featured Kaw Kesse who was then an experienced player in the industry.
But it appears the old (established musicians) are done playing their part in that "conditional responsibility" of nurturing the budding talents, as they have become "weak" and so it is now time for the up and coming artists, who have been nurtured and guided into stardom by the old folks, to honour their end of the agreement.
In the light of this, there seems to be a new trend emerging in the Ghanaian music industry in recent times, where you see the ‘old players’ who have gone under the radar and arguably lost relevance, to latch on the shine of the young artists in a bid to re-launch their seemingly ‘dead’ careers.
But the questions is who benefits most in this old and new generation musical collaborations?
These collaborations, mostly provide a platform for the budding talents to directly learn from the old folks particularly in the areas of song writing, production and stage craft.
It's also served as a catalyst for the budding talents, who are hitherto underground artists, to showcase their virgin talents to the rest of the world.
In other words, the up and coming artists ride on the 'shine' of the established artists to sprout into mainstream music industry.
Again, these collaborations turn to revive the careers of many of these old musicians and provide them with another shot at "musical life".
For instance, award winning hip-life musician, Nana Kwaku Okyere Duah formerly known as "Tic Tac" but now known as "Tic" in a bid to re-launch his obviously ‘not-too-vibrant’ career has collaborated with Kwami Eugene in a remix of one of his earliest hit tracks, "kwani kwani"and with KiDi, "Pene Mame".
These two collaborations in no doubt have revived Tic's musical career and he is now enjoying some prominence as far as relevance in the music industry is concerned.
Again, popular High-Life singer, K.K Fosu has also teamed up with Ayesem, another young rapper and singer, to release a single titled: "who say man no dey."
Similarly, K.K. Fosu has also featured young songstress, Adina to release yet another single titled "Lovers Rock", hence K.K Fosu having his fair share of the benefits of the old-young collabos.
So in a nutshell, fans and Ghanaians in general are going to be the ultimate beneficiaries of this old to new musical collaboration in the long run.
By: Bridget Aazore Yuora
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