Obrafour accepting the Song Writer of the Year Award Reasons given by Charterhouse Production Ltd, organizers of Ghana Music Awards (GMA), that Obrafour's dancers were to blame for the abrupt halt in his performance during this year's GMA has been debunked by a technical expert adding to the scenario, more questions than answers.
It may be recalled that during this year's Ghana Music Awards event held on March 13 at the Accra International Conference Center, Obrafour's scheduled 10-minutes performance lasted barely three minutes because the two microphones they were using went off half way through the act. The problem wasn't fixed even when the host came up stage later to announce the next act.
Even though the organizers failed to announce to the audience in subsequent acts, during the show about the cause of the hitch, they later suggested on several radio interviews that Obrafour's (and Tinny's) cordless microphones went off because their backup dancers trampled on the 'microphone wires'.
However, Mr D.K Danso, a top sound engineer, who had worked on equally large concerts as GMA, told this reporter that it was highly unlikely that the dancers trampled on the 'mic wires', [strange enough, of cordless microphones] to have caused the break in the microphone sound alone. His point was that vocal from the microphone and all other sound passes through the main mixer. "Else, why do we call it cordless and moreover, how come music and all other sound was functioning apart from that of the cordless microphone". He asked a rhetorical.
Asked what could have caused a cordless microphone to go off in such a manner, the sound brainy said, "low batteries in the cordless microphones or interruption of frequencies, especially of mobile phones, could be possible causes". According to him, the general receiver that communicates the sound from the cordless microphones to the speakers is also connected through the main mixer (or mixing board) and relays the entire sound including CD, live band and projector sound through amplifiers to the speakers.
This technical insight therefore goes contrary to the organizer's explanation and hence leave more questions rather unanswered about the reason why Obrafour 'was not allowed' to complete the act he had impressively started. "Why would we put up a show and try to sabotage it ourselves", rebuffs Phillip Ayensu, General Manager of Charterhouse, he continues, "doesn't Obrafour think that anything wrong about the show first of all goes to discredit us as organizers before him, the act?"
According to Obrafour, he had to leave for home earlier not because he didn't receive the expected awards, but because the organizers were in no hurry to solve the problem but was rather using all the time available for him to argue with his label executives backstage. ?You also don?t think that I had loyal fans there not to disappoint?? Obrafour replies with another rhetorical question.
According to him, he was expecting same result at the GMA 2004 because the organizers fundamentally flawed by nominating a wrong song - his not-so-popluar - "Oye Ohene" (original) instead of very popular "Ntetiepa" or even "Oye Ohene remix". "If they were clean and had good intentions, they would have, at least, nominated my most popular tune of 2003- 'Ntetiepa'- to see the outcome of the general public voting", Obrafour asked.
Since the awards, the main topic and opinion of majority of music critics and industry deep insiders were on the reason for this obvious oversight at GMA 2004. ?Wrong nominations at GMA 2004 have robbed genuine acts such as Obrafour and Christiana Love of deserving honours? a respected industry player commented on a post event radio discussion including the General Manager and the Event Director of GMA.
And even though Ghana Music.Com was backstage, we mistakenly didn't consider the possibility of this technical evaluation hence apportioned the entire blame on Obrafour in Verus' story headlined [Obrafour's Night Of Doom Plus The Biggest Disappointments At Ghana Music Awards 2004"- March 14, 2004].
Having analyzed the turn of events and the interview with Mr. D.K Danso, I find it ethical-correct to retract the entire story, pull it off the site and offer an unqualified apology to Obrafour and the entire Execution Entertainment team. I sincerely apologize for any inconveniences the previous story may have caused Obrafour, his close-to-clean image and his highly populated fanbase, who since the day the story was published on this site never ceased to e-mail us to defend their cherished fan.
