Ghameli

‘Sarkodie is still the Man,’ reads the headline of a  culart.blog  review following the debut edition of his ‘This Is Tema’ concert in October 2019. The headline might be easy to dismiss but casual observers of the Ghanaian music industry will admit the past few years, especially 2019 was a difficult one for the ‘Lucky’ artiste. Going by his own standards, recent songs he’s released, which are largely considered rotation-heavy, don’t compare to the level of ‘Adonai,’ ‘you go kill me,’ ‘Illuminati’ and or ‘Original.’ In an industry where an artiste’s relevance is based on whether he or she is a hit-making factory, the two-time Ghana Music Awards ‘Artiste of the Year’ winner surprisingly hasn’t lost his star power or become a ‘victim’ of diminished relevance according to the unwritten rules of the industry he finds himself. Sarkodie still rubs shoulders with talents who are enjoying mainstream relevance like Kwesi Arthur, Kidi, Kuami Eugene, Fameye and Stonebwoy among o...

Sales of compact/video discs over the last few years have been on the decline because of the proliferation of the Internet and mass media. These days, consumers prefer downloading music, videos or movies off the Internet instead of buying physical copies. It has led to many producers backing out of the industry and investing in other ventures as a result of their inability to recoup their investments. Agiecoat, Slip, Big Ben and other notable individuals and companies come to mind. All hope is however not lost because there are other avenues or ways musicians/producers, and actors can make money other than relying solely on music/video sales. Quite a sizeable number of Ghanaian celebrities are active on social media and have a large following. They (celebrities) can get paid to promote brands and companies on these platforms. For instance Kim Kardashian has over 18 million followers on Twitter. She is paid some $20,000 to tweet-drive brands. Actress Lydia Forson has a foll...

Internet trolling is one of the many negatives celebrities who are active online have to deal with. Unlike the past where internet penetration levels were low, and a lot of people weren't online, celebrities these days wake up to daily fights with trolls. Wikipedia describes a troll as a person who sows discord on the internet by trying to start arguments and upset people. The troll’s way of upsetting a celebrity or public figure may either be by dissing them, unnecessarily comparing them to a competitor in the same field or veering off a question asked by the celebrity and go on the offensive. Weeks ago, an actress was in the news for all the wrong reasons because she insulted a supposed fan for calling her (actress) a  drag  queen. The actress took time to go through the said fan’s picture collections and re posted one describing the said fan in an equally distasteful manner. Who wins? I thought it was completely unnecessary for that, and the resultant counter-attac...