Ghanaian singer KiDi has delivered a critique of the country’s music landscape, insisting that what exists is not an industry but a patchwork of individual effort.
Speaking with Kwame Dadzie and Doreen Avio on Hitz FM, the Lynx Entertainment artiste argued that despite the global visibility of Ghanaian music, there are no real systems in place to support artists.
“Industry does this, industry does that, but from where I sit, we do not have an industry,” he said. “It’s there in name, like Ghana music industry, but we don’t have the structures that make us an industry. We’re just floating, doing our best with the little resources we have.”
KiDi lamented that after more than a decade of hit records, he should have reached far greater heights if the right structures existed. Instead, he said, artists are left to shoulder every responsibility themselves.
“After 10 years of all the hits I’ve had, if we had structures, I should be a mega superstar,” he explained. “But it’s one man for himself. You and your team have to find money for videos, for promotion, for everything.”
He pointed to weak royalty collection systems and the absence of organized frameworks as proof of an industry that leaves its biggest names vulnerable. “If you speak to Sarkodie, or Shatta Wale, or Stonebwoy, everybody is striving on their own with their own team, trying to form their plans and marketing strategies. But we don’t have anything.”
The multiple award winner also underscored that music extends beyond the performers themselves. According to him, DJs, video directors, bloggers, presenters, and dancers all form part of an ecosystem that has been overlooked.
“The DJ is part of the industry, the music video director, the blogger, the dancer, everybody forms the industry. But when problems come, we blame the artistes,” he said. “If the artiste goes up, the DJ goes up, the blogger goes up, the radio presenter goes up. Everybody in the ecosystem goes up. But we’ve left the artistes on an island and say, you are the industry, do what you have to do.”
Watch his remarks below.
