Entertainment of Friday, 21 September 2012

Source: Ernest Dela Aglanu

Don’t be intimidated by men jumping on stage – Becca counsels female artistes

Songstress, Rebecca Acheampong popularly known on stage as Becca is counseling female musicians to take pride in the fact that they are women and should not be intimidated by their male counterparts.

The Ghanaian music industry has over the years been a male dominated field with just a handful of female musicians making strides.

As successful as she is, Becca, who was speaking on the Super Morning Show, noted that some females, including Mzbel, have helped set the pace for female musicians in the country, providing a lot more with confidence to do music.

She envisaged that, “the next two to five years, we are going to have a lot of women in the music industry, it is just a matter of encouraging them, pushing them and letting them know they can do it.”

The Push singer however advised female musicians “not get intimidated by seeing men on stage jumping around. When you are going on stage and you are doing your thing, you are doing your thing because you are different, because you are unique, because you are woman and being a woman itself makes you unique.”

Becca was however quick to say that although she is pushing for women to hold their ground and attain greater heights in the music industry, she is not a feminist.

According to her, she “just stands up for women. I believe that there is a lot women can do and their rights have been infringed upon … I believe that women have so much potential and there is so much they can offer the world.”

Commenting on the reason why her US$50,000 music video, No Away which featured Nigerian rapper M.I. which was shot in South Africa, Becca explained that although there are great music video directors in Ghana, she just “wanted to try something different.”

As to why she would spend that amount on a video, Becca explained that, “I am a singer, what would you want me to spend US$50,000 on? That is my investment; I am not going to spend US$50,000 on buying a Range Rover or any other car. I will spend US$50,000 on my music, on shooting my video, traveling to shoot it if I have to because that is my investment and that is what I am going to recoup from in future.”

The US$50,000, which was actually sponsorship for the video, she added, included expenses on traveling, hotel bills, production, feeding, payment for the director and a host of others.

Listen to the latest one from Becca featuring M.I on ‘No Away’