Veteran highlife artiste Rex Omar has bemoaned the quality of music produced onto the Ghanaian music market of late.
Speaking to Doctor Cann on Happy FM’s Showbiz Xtra, he said music producers of today are not concerned about doing quality music. They don’t spend time and money to record timeless music.
“I am not saying everybody should record live like I have done. You can do digital music and still have quality production but I can boldly say a lot of the digital productions being churned out of late are poor. They are disposable music. Their life time is short,” he told Doctor Cann.
The ‘Abiba’ hit maker also noted that there are a lot of Ghanaian rhythms that musicians and their producers can explore and utilise. He proposed that music is dynamic and that it is about time Ghanaians re-defined highlife to suit present time.
“We have to know that music like any form of culture changes. Things have changed about highlife. There can be other foreign rhythms but ones the typical highlife features are more, it still remains highlife. What I mean is that we should not be limited to only one type of chordal progression of highlife like ‘Amponsah’. That is someone’s creation. We should open up to other Ghanaian rhythms and chords,” he said.
Rex added his voice to the controversy that surrounded Kofi Kinaata’s ‘Confession’ when it was nominated in the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards. When asked if Kofi Kinaata’s ‘Confession’ was highlife, he explained that the fact that there are no strings in the song does not bar it from being a highlife song.
“It is a typical highlife song. You see, you need not to have the guitar strings and the ‘ka ka ka’ to know it is highlife music. Nowadays, most producers use other musical instruments to play that rhythm other than the castanet ad that is creativity,” he explained.
Rex Omar is currently the Chairman of the Ghana Music Rights Organisation (GHAMRO) and has produced a lot of great hits like ‘Konka,’ ‘Obi Doba.’ ‘Who Am I,’ ‘Paapa,’ and others.
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