Entertainment of Tuesday, 12 August 2014

Source: Razz Newspaper

Eze demands fair recognition in Ghana

Nigerian-born musician, EZE, who has been in the Ghanaian music industry for over12 years now, has vented his disappointment at Ghana’s music industry, saying that, he feels the Ghanaian music industry is trying to discriminate and sideline him of his Nigerian background.

Eze, who has four albums to his credit, seems not to put much effort in promoting his song in Ghana any longer because he feels sidelined by industry players.

sharing his sentiments and experience, he said, ‘No one can tell me that I don’t do good music, if I don’t do good music, my music will not be a hit all over African countries and I will not regularly be performing across Africa.’

“So why does my music have low patronage in Ghana? Why are Ghanaians against Nigerians in Ghana? Why? Even when I give my CDs to the DJs, they feel I should go to Nigeria to do my music” a mystified Eze stated.

Talking about the Ghana music Awards, he said that, since he started making music, anytime Charter-house nominates him; they nominate him in the African Act category, which is a sign of sideline and also shows that, they don’t classify him as a Ghanaian Artiste.

He queried, “Is it because I have a Nigerian background? For God’s sake, I have been part of the generation of Hip-life music for so many years now and by law I am a Ghanaian and I have a Ghanaian wife, Ghanaian children, or the industry wants me to get to Hollywood before they welcome me?”

Eze is currently promoting his fifth new album titled, ‘We Are The Best’, featuring DanceHall artiste, Shatta Wale.

He also blamed the musician Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) for the reasons why more talents have not been discovered since appropriate measures have not been put in place to support upcoming musicians.

“Many people praise Obour and MUSIGA for some good job done, but I believe the Union is not original, they do things for people to see that yes, they are working but rather, the fundamental Job they are supposed to do have not been done yet, I am just not happy with the hypocritical representation of MUSIGA though I am a member of the union’ he bemoaned.

Apart from Music, Eze has also starred in a couple of movies and played major roles with actors and actress like Nadia Buari, Majid Michel, Yvonne Okoro, Sam Loco, Jackie Appiah, etc.

Eze’s songs straddle the borders of Ghana and Nigeria and have, therefore, built a good solid fan base in Africa.

He is also the originator of some major event such as ‘Loud in Accra’ and ‘Kicking in Kumasi’ in the early 2000s; he’s also the brain behind the popular song titled ‘Anago’ which had heavy rotation on TV.