Ghanaian dancehall artistes are ‘cheap’ – Shatta Wale

Self acclaimed dancehall king, Shatta wale born Charles Nii Armah Mensah claims most Ghanaian dancehall artistes settle for less due to poverty.

According to him, he had a meeting with a section of dancehall artistes in Ghana and suggested to them that they create a union for themselves in order to come up with a target price they can charge whenever they are called for shows, but “the artistes didn’t show up after the first meeting and kept giving excuses” he added.

Shatta continued that after the artistes refused to show up, he later heard in the news that the same artistes have accused him of being disloyal to them, a situation he described as a sign of “illiteracy”.

The reigning VGMA Artiste of The Year said, “most of these boys are poverty striken artistes, they don’t have anything for themselves and they don’t know how to take decisions for themselves and when that happens. I feel there should be someone to control these thing to make them know that this is work and I feel pity sometimes when I’m talking about dancehall artistes”.

Recounting his experience during his 10 year hiatus from the music scene, he said, “I was in the industry before Iwan, Stonebwoy and Jupita all of them came in and I went through a lot and didn’t even have money to fend for myself at a point and now that I’ve been able to pay my way through and I want us to work hand in hand. I can’t sit down and watch my fellow colleagues fall, but it’s always happening and they keep are falling.

Asked how much he charged for playing shows, Shatta said, ” Now if I perform, I take between $20,000 to $50,000 if you don’t pay I won’t come” he stated.

Touching on the challenges facing the music industry, Shatta said that show organizers do not treat artistes well.

“They lie to us too much in terms of not paying us well that is why you don’t find me on certain shows because I’m an artiste and you don’t know how I come about my music and when I work for you and I say this is my price you have to pay me but because some of us are not so much into the show business, most of them like to do the show more than the business and I tell most of my colleges that this is business we have to make money out of it for our future also and help other youths come up”, he revealed.

The dancehall king noted that “I knew other artistes didn’t like it when I talked about it but poverty is killing them” he insisted.

Shatta Wale is currently working on a back to school project and asked for support to print more books for distribution in schools in the rural areas.

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