The Power Of Collaboration In The Ghanaian Music Industry

The Ghanaian music scene has thrived on collaborations between artistes for a long. The power of collaboration has arguably had the greatest positive impact on the world of music out of all the artistic mediums. Collaborations are the key to helping performers reach new fan bases and cross over between styles and genres. It has taken the shape of a feature, cover, remix, and even the appropriation of instrumentals from works by other musicians. 

In recent times it feels as though Ghanaian artistes do not want to work with other artistes due to reasons unknown to the public. It is believed that some artistes feel threatened to collaborate with other acts. It will be of great benefit to artistes if they come together to collaborate on songs. Their streams will increase, their catalog will have some variety  and also they will satisfy the needs of their fans who want to see them merge with other artistes on a song. In an interview on Culture Daily, rapper Sarkodie said that Black Sherif (Blacko), currently the biggest artiste in the country hit him up and asked to be on his album JAMZ.

According to him, Blacko had the liberty to approach the biggest record on his album COUNTRY SIDE anyhow he deemed it fit. Even though it was Sarkodie’s album, Blacko named the hit song. Amerado collaborating with Blacko on ABOTR3 (Patience) which happens to be his biggest song so far is a typical example of how far an artiste's sound presence on a song can have a massive impact on another artiste's career. M.anifest working together with Obrafuor on NO SHORTCUT TO HEAVEN is of honorable mention as well.

The Deputy Minister for Tourism, Arts, and Culture, Mr. Mark Okraku-Mantey in an interview on Hitz Fm last year, urged musicians from Ghana and Nigeria to work together. However collaborations between Ghanaian artistes and other African artistes have become a bit of a challenge with artistes being out of reach and fans causing a stir between artistes on social media. Artistes signed to record labels have it easy collaborating with other artistes since the labels do most of the networking both internally and externally but for independent artists, the narrative is different. Most often than not when an artiste is signed to a record label, it is difficult for an independent artiste to get them on song due to the type of contract they have with the label. 

It is hoped that Ghanaian artistes can find the bridge between working together with each other and musicians from other countries as collaboration does more for the artiste, the music ecosystem and brings out better music for the world to enjoy.