Music of Tuesday, 15 March 2005

Source: ghanamusic.com

Why Can?t Hiplife Be Decent?

Obrafour Music, an essential aspect of human life has been with us for a very long time. People have drawn inspirational, educational and emotional messages from it.

In the olden days, Ghanaian musicians relied on locally made instruments and thought provoking lyrics to produce quality handiwork and entertainment was at its best.

 

Somewhere along the line, foreign instruments were introduced and Ghana experienced highlife music. Highlife also gave birth to hiplife music, which is currently enjoying massive following in the country.

 

Despite the fact that the hiplife industry offers employment, it is doing more harm than good to the society. Today, not a single day passes without a new artiste springing up.

 

This evolution has brought about competition in the hiplife industry and as a result, artistes rush to come out with songs to enhance sales and attain stardom. It is for this reason that most hiplife songs are full of noise and profane lyrics.

 

In as much as one commends some hiplife artistes for the educational and recreational role they play, with some even going further to complement the Vice President?s campaign against indiscipline, others have absolutely nothing good to offer. They are just noise making artistes.

 

Many of them chant meaningless messages, others have a field day with profanity for survival.

 

Why can?t these musicians construct their artistic work without referring to women?s private parts, buttocks, breasts among others? Of course, singing about love is good but does it have to border on profanity?

 

The canker has affected most of the youth in almost all fields of their lives especially with dressing and speaking. Students in second cycle institutions are the most vulnerable because they tend to live promiscuous lives these days and indulge in other social vices because of the love of hiplife at the expense of their books.

 

To avert this trend, I throw a challenge to both COSGA and MUSIGA to act against the phenomenon now. The Ministry of Education and Sports should also do something about this. Also, it is about time the general public put all hands on deck to fight against noisy music that are full of filthy words.