Ghana music industry needs more investors – Jon Germain

MUSICIAN JON Germain, host of Allo tigo on Metro TV, has indicated that if Ghanaian musicians will move away from doing more of the commercial music, it will enable them to cross the boundaries of Ghana.

According to him, the major problem as to why Ghanaian songs cannot go beyond the shores is because “we need investors and also there are no record labels here in the country, the fact is that every musician here produces his/her own music with monies from their own coffers and this really is pulling us back.”

The affable looking young man noted that, Nigerian musicians have a lot of investors who put their monies into their industry, “to the extent of producing a $50.000 music video but in this country, no one can take the risk of shooting such an expensive video.”

Germain further explained that Nigerian songs are everywhere on the continent and the world at large, hence with “the directors to such international TV stations, as Channel O, Mnet TV and Mtv base are Nigerians and therefore they play more of Nigerian music videos which promote them over 90%, so “it is understandable when these global networks are marketing their songs.”

He further indicated that Ghanaian musicians need to go the extra mile of coming out with songs that would attract outsiders to easily understand and love them as well as promote “our songs through tours and other means of getting our songs all over the globe.

He said it will be very bad to only sing for the ears of Ghanaians and surprisingly, most of the songs only make the hit in Accra unlike Nigerian music which is everywhere in the world.

Touching on his plans for this year, he revealed that he has a new album dubbed ‘anigma’ of which he is supposed to release the first single ‘tell me’ in two weeks time and “after the first single is out in a month, I will plan as to when to release the rest of them.”

modernghana.com