MAKING GHANAIAN MUSIC EXPORTABLE

by Professor John Collins.  Paper  presented at the Ghana Music Awards Seminar at the National Theatre, Accra, 6^th April  2001

 

 

 On the question of  the exportability of Ghanaian popular music  it should first be noted that currently there are two quite distinct markets for it. Firstly there is an internal market made up of mainly ‘burgher’ highlife, hiplife and sacred gospel music that is recorded  for the local Ghanaian market with the aid of drum-machines, midi-computers systems and synthesisers  and which generates in  cassette and CD sales the cedi equivalent of 25 million dollars/year [1]

 

Secondly there is a the new so-called international  ‘World Music’[2] market ( of which about one quarter is  African music)  which I obtained figures for when I prepared and presented a paper on the African music industry for a World Bank meeting in Washington DC on June 20^th 2000. (SEE APPENDIX A)

 

  For the last five years ‘World Music’ has been the fastest growing sector of the American music industry and now represents about 14 percent ( 5  billion dollars) of the annual  global record/CD  sales.  1.25 billion dollars per year of this ( one quarter)  is for African music and if this is added to the African component of ‘World Music’ royalties (220 million dollar per year)  it means almost 1.5 billion dollars is being grossed internationally from African music.

 

Furthermore as Ghana represents 3.6 of the population of Africa it should potentially be getting 3.6 percent of this 1.5 billion dollar figure -  which is almost 53 million dollars a year (SEE APPENDIX B FOR FULL DETAILS OF THESE FIGURES)

 

However, Ghana  is hardly tapping  any of this foreign exchange as  African music lovers in Europe, America and Japan are precisely those looking for an alternative to techno-pop and therefore prefer a more rootsy,  live format, ‘unplugged’ and non-synthetic African popular music  - rather than the computerised and ‘canned’ varieties currently fashionable in Ghana. This explains why Ghanaian CD’s are practically absent from the shelves of American, European and Japanese music shops that deal with ‘World Music’ [3] and for comments on the disinterest in current high-tech Ghanaian popular music by various foreign and local journalists SEE APPENDIX C .  Indeed in the 15 years or so since the ‘World Music’ label appeared,  Ghana has had only one significant  cross-over to  this lucrative international.[4] Music fans abroad prefer the more authentic African sounds of Senegal’s Youssou N’Dour [5], Mali’s Salif Keita and Ali Faka Toure, Benin’s Angelique Kidjo, Nigeria’s Fela Kuti  and Congo’s  Papa Wemba and Kanda Bongo Man[6]  - to name a few.

 

All these above musicians have  evolved as artists by utilising/modernising  traditional African musical resources and by  operating in a milieu  of live bands and live performances. In Ghana today the popular music sector hardly has any live bands or live performance venues therefore it is impossible to generate the type of music needed for export. Before  examining ways of turning this situation around for Ghana let us first look at the problems  that have throttled the live popular music and entertainment  industry in the last 20 years or so.

 

As is well known Ghana created the first distinct form of African popular music (the brass-band Adaha highlife) way back in  the 1880’s and British-made records of Ghanaian highlife began to be made for the West African market as early as 1927/8.  When Ghana obtained independence in 1957 Kwame Nkrumah endorsed highlife and other local popular entertainment, encouraged the establishment of two performance unions and set up government sponsored highlife dance bands, guitar bands  and concert parties . Ghana was also the location of  West Africa’s first permanent recording studio (Decca 1948) and by the mid-1970’s the country had  four recording studios and two record pressing plants[7].  By then Ghanaian highlife had spread  to many African countries and a variant known as Afro-rock, created by the London-based Ghanaian group Osibisa had a string of hits in Europe long before the ‘World Music’ explosion. Indeed they made so much money for the British taxman that they were awarded a medal by the British Queen.

 

 So everything seemed set for the Ghanaian music business to progress. There were scores of night-clubs and dance venues in Accra alone, twenty or more top highlife dance-bands, dozens of Ga ‘cultural groups’ seventy or so highlife guitar bands and concert parties, dozens of Afro-rock fusion bands (like Hedzolleh, Basa-Basa, Boombaya, Big Beats and Ogyataana) and hundreds of school student pop-bands competing at so-called ‘pop-chains’.

 

However, by the time the international commercial interest  in ‘World Music’  began  from the early 1980’s [8] a number  of set-backs had occurred and have continued to occur that has prevented  and are preventing Ghana from cashing in on this potential  area of foreign exchange earnings. These will be more fully examined later – but in brief they include  the general economic decline of the country in late seventies, political upheavals, several years of night curfew, no private business tax waivers for music sponsorship, over-taxation of  live bands and the music industry and a general governmental  blind-spot for the commercial potential of  local music as a foreign exchange earner (i.e. from tourism and the world market)

 

            It must also be noted  here that  since independence and unlike in neighbouring Nigeria and the Cote d’Ivoire, [9] no Ghanaian musician has ever been able to  become wealthy enough  from monies generated from music purely inside the country to build a night-club or recording studio. Those few who have made it financially (like Osibisa, Amekye Dede,  Kwadwo Antwi, Daddy Lumba) have done so through going abroad. [10] The fact the no musician in Ghana has made it financially has in turn discouraged local businessmen from investing in the country’s music business. Indeed, in terms of music production Ghana has gone backwards thirty years,  as up until the mid-seventies it was able to record and press its own records and  today it has only three studios for live recording [11]  and has to press CD’s abroad [12] .

 

If things continue  like this Ghana will end up with just cheaply-made canned computerised music that is un-exportable, is unattractive to foreign tourists, will lead to more unemployed musicians and will further alienate the youth from their traditional roots .

 

Let us now look at these problems in more detail

 

1)      THE ECONOMIC DECLINE OF THE LATE 1970’S

Due to miliary  government mismanagement and corruption (‘kalabule’) during the later part of the 1970’s the country went into  economic decline and record production dropped to a quarter of its previous output. Consequently many [13] performing popular artists left the country in a musical “brain drain”  and settled in London, Germany and Nigeria (then at the peak of its oil-boom).  Many of those that stayed  in Ghana began to move into the many independent spiritual and pentecostal churches[14] that were beginning to mushroom on the country[15] and which were beginning to use popular dance-music in worship and for outreach purposes. This trend has become so strong that local gospel now comprises maybe half of the output of  Ghanaian popular music [16]

 

            It should be  noted that despite the economic decline traditional and neo-traditional (eg. kpanlogo and borborbor) drum-dance music that are acoustic and use locally made instruments continued to thrive. Indeed, so much so that since the late 1980’s about ten private music drumming  schools have been established that cater for young foreign musically-inclined tourists. Moreover, it is this  local acoustic or unplugged  music and the not the recent wave of local Ghanaian techno-pop that  represents the bulk of the small Ghanaian segment of the World Music market  [17]

 

2)      THE CURFEW AND DEMISE  OF THE LIVE  POPULAR MUSIC SCENE

In spite of some positive  cultural policies of the PNDC military government such as de-centralising the Arts Council, recognizing the Musicians Union and preparing the ground for new  copyright legislation, between 1982 and 1984 there was two-and-a-half years of night curfew which drastically curtailed the activities of  commercial night-clubs and local pop, highlife and concert bands. In retrospect  this can be seen as a watershed for Ghanaian popular entertainment. Prior to the curfew popular music it was mainly performed and recorded by live bands and concert parties, aftrerwards  it became more the computerised, ‘canned’  and video variety.

 

3)      THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF NEW TECHNOLOGY ON LIVE POP MUSIC

 After the curfew was lifted in 1984 the open-air night clubs  were invaded by dozens of mobile discos or ‘spinners’  who had previously operated in small discotheques. With their low entrance charges they soon took over the dance venues from live bands  in the cities and later even the villages, as  their ‘spinning;’ equipment was cheaper to buy and operate than those of the larger highlife and concert bands. At the same time as the spinners, Ghanaian highlife with a drum-machine and keyboard synthesiser became the rage with the youth, created by Ghanaian musicians based in Germany, particularly Hamburg . Thus the name   ‘burgher highlife’. New digital studios sprang up to cater for this music and the more recent vernacular rap variant known as hip-life (i.e. hip-hop plus highlife).  These  use drum programs, midi [18] systems and synthesizers and have largely  done away with live drummers and horn players who are made unemployed. Therefore for music videos and even live performance on stage the current generation of Ghanaian  techno-pop musicians have to  mime or lip-synch. [19]

 

Simultaneously during the late eighties the local video market started to boom and although this created an avenue for some concert party actors and actresses  it helped kill off the live concert party performances of groups that had been touring the remote  villages – as mobile video began to follow the same route [20]

 

4)      THE LACK OF LOCAL ROLE MODEL MUSICIANS   THAT WILL ENCOURAGE GHANAIAN YOUTH TO UTILISE INDIGENOUS RESOURCES

Because of the two million Ghanaians living abroad many top burgher highlife and hip-life musicians are able to go abroad to play for them, make music-videos abroad  and return with dollars and deutschmarks in their pockets. The impression is thus given to Ghanaian youth at home that these touring artists have become international super-stars with their Ghanaian techno-pop music. However, in actual fact the music of these artists hardly crosses over to the international ‘World Music’  market at all,  as their shows are mainly patronised by Ghanaians abroad.

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what they are doing  except that in Ghana they are inadvertently sending a message to the young aspiring artists that they too  can make it internationally with computerised Ghanaian music. This creates a negative feed-back loop in Ghana that encourages a further move away by young artists and music fans from using traditional musical resources,  and towards the computer artificiality that is so fashionable in music making here at the moment. It therefore in no way opens up the possibility to the youth here that money and success  can also be made by producing indigenous based live format music for the ‘World Music’ market.

 

What we also need here therefore  is a positive role model for the youth (such as Senegal has with Youssou N’dour or Mali with Salif Keita) whose modern  use of traditional African musical and rhythmic resources makes them both commercially successful abroad and puts African music into the world limelight.

 

We had one such positive role model once way back in the 1970’s, in the form of  Osibisa,  that triggered off numerous other local Afro-rock bands: but  the ‘World Music’ commercial sector did not then exist. Now that ‘World Music’ is firmly on the international map, it  is ironically not Ghana but other African countries that are  producing globally successful bands equivalent to Osibisa; i.e that utilise traditional  African resources.

 

As will be discussed immediately below a critical factor preventing the re-emergence of large live bands such as Osibisa in Ghana is the heavy taxation on the Ghanaian live music industry – which rather  encourages the emergence of cheaper to run/produce computer bands and techno-pop. 

 

5) ) THE NEGATIVE IMPACT ON THE LOCAL  MUSIC BUSINESS OF NUMEROUS MINISTERY OF INTERNAL REVENUE TAXES

After the economic problems of the late 1970’s, political instability  and curfew,   the post 1986 IMF/World Bank inspired ‘structural adjustment policy’ helped the Ghanaian economy pick up. However this boom did not effect music business – especially live bands – due to  numerous taxes by Internal Revenue and the Customs and Excise prevention Service of the Ministry of Internal Revenue. These currently include  the following [21] .

 

1.        A super import duty of 160% on band instruments that are classed as luxury items even though for a musician they are the tools-of-the-trade.

2.        A pre-paid  entertainment tax (now replaced by a pre-paid 12.5% VAT tax on the value of the tickets) on gate-proceeds for not only music promoters but also  bands that promote their own shows.

3.        Income tax on musicians and creative artists.

4.        The Internal Revenue Service allows no income tax waiver on companies that are prepared  to sponsor cultural/artistic events. ( I believe such a waiver is allowed for sporting sponsorship) .

5.        Internal Revenue collects 15% of the banderole (now hologram)  money as a pre-paid income tax on musicians and producers

6.        4%  of the 40% levy on blank cassettes introduced in 1988 goes Customs and Excise.

 

The fact that the churches,   as charitable organisations, do not pay these taxes helps explains why local gospel highlife music has boomed in Ghana since the mid 1980’s. They do  not pay import duties, income tax or entertainment taxes and so live music bands thrive amidst them. Indeed, many commercial musicians have had to go under the patronage of the church to survive. On the other hand  the commercial live music sector has been almost taxed to death and it is now just too expensive to run a large format  band with live horns and percussion players.

           

6) GOVERNMENT BLIND SPOTS REGARDIING MUSIC AND THE LOCAL MUSIC INDUSTRY

1.      In the late 1980’s the school syllabus was restructured so as to make it more technical and related to the practical needs of the country. Unfortunately in the process music as an independent subject was dropped in Junior Secondary Schools and can only be taught alongside dance, drama and cultural studies ( which is often not possible) And for the Senior Secondary Schools music was demoted from a core subject to an optional one and as a result music in many  S.S. Schools has been dropped altogether[22] .

2.      In the 1970’ and 1980’s Culture was part of the Ministry of Tourism and then  the Ministry of Education. When finally it was given a separate status in the late-eighties it was demoted from a full Ministry to a National Commission on Culture. From 1992 when PNDC member Dr. Mohammed Ben Abdullah left the directorship of the NCC[23]  culture has  never had cabinet representation.

3.      The performing arts did not feature at all  in the  NDC’s government’s  Vision 2020 policy that they hoped  would raise Ghana to a middle income level nation in the  future.[24]

4.      A leading Ghanaian music producer complained  in 1999  that the  local music industry did not feature at all at African/African-American Summit in Accra that attracted Jesse Jackson and many  black American  businessmen who came to explore joint projects with Ghanaians  [25]. That the music and entertainment industry was not officially discussed is surprising taking into account that this industry is one of the biggest in the United States and that the US is currently going through a World Music/Afro-pop boom.

5.      As previously mentioned, I attended a World Bank meeting on June 20^th 2000  to discuss the possibility of the World Bank diverting some of its annual 300 million dollars money for culture to the music industry of six African countries. This got  the go-ahead a few months later from the World Bank head  James Wolfensohn and I was assured by one of the organisers of the meeting that Ghana would be the first recipient. However when the World Bank representative here, Mr. Peter Harrolds, studied the fine print of the current agreement between the World Bank and Ghana he noticed that that was no clause in it for aid/loans to culture and entertainment. So World Bank monies could not be sent to Ghana and instead Senegal got the first installment in November last year.[26] I am sure that this omission in the Ghanaian agreement  with the World Bank is a result of culture not being represented at ministerial level.

 

 

SOME CONCRETE PROPOSAL FOR GHANA TO BOOST  ITS LIVE COMMERCIAL MUISC/ENTERTAINMENT SECTOR

 

1)      TAX HOLIDAY AND INCENTIVES

As has been discussed in connection with the ‘World Music’ market,  live format and  indigenous oriented African dance-music is now an exportable commodity and I would therefore suggest that the government institutes  a minimum five ( preferably ten) year tax holiday for the Ghanaian music and entertainment industry  – equivalent to the tax/duty concessions given to anyone starting up a commercial agriculture business in the country that is oriented to non-traditional exports.[27]  This would encourage the re-surfacing of live popular bands, night-clubs that cater for them and the sponsoring/investment of private businesses into the  artistic sector. [28]  Money lost to the Ministry of Internal Revenue (the cedi equivalent of 5 million dollars/year [29]) would ultimately be re-covered in foreign exchange from the export of live (cf. computerised and canned) Ghanaian popular music on the ‘World Music’ market,  which as mentioned earlier is potentially as much as 53 million dollars  a year. 

 

Furthermore there is also an invisible musical import of foreign exchange through tourism. Everyone has heard of eco-tourism – but in Ghana culture also pulls in tourists who spend an estimated ten percent of their foreign exchange on entertainment and recreation [30]. Indeed many foreign tourists who come here complain about the lack of live music and live music venues and it is likely that some tourists ( and film crews)  prefer go to countries that have a high ‘World Music’ profile and have a strong live popular music nightlife scene, such as Senegal, Mali and so on.

 

 The  positive effect of this tax holiday/incentives  suggestion  would not be immediate but would definitely occur as evidenced from other countries that have given similar tax waivers/reductions to the arts, such as Ireland, Australia, Brazil and New Zealand.[31] Ten years or so ago the  Irish government removed income taxes for creative artists which has helped in the recent world-wide boom of Celtic music and dance. The Australian government gave tax incentives to its fledgling film industry  which facilitated its growth and export. . About 15 years  ago Brazil introduced a law that record companies that produced local music could claim 70% back on their VAT at the end of the year – as a result the output of Brazilian (cf.  imported) [JC1] music rose from 30 to 70 percent of the internal market.[32]  In 1999 the New Zealand government began pumping  money into the music industry, including international marketing, which led  to local music commercial air-play multipling five times above its 1995 level.[33]

 

2) GHANAIAN CHURCH  GOSPEL MUSIC

Any taxation of the local  church should not include its music sector as for the last fifteen or twenty years the churches have kept musicians and highlife and other live music going – as well as introducing a new generation of women to the music field. Rather, with the 5 or 10  year tax holiday mentioned earlier, church bands and their numerous musicians[34] should be encouraged to also find regular employment in the commercial sector. Hopefully this will trigger off a precedent established in the United States when, during the fifties ands sixties, ‘hot’ gospel music of the African-American churches went secular  and helped create  money generating commercial doo-wop music and soul that in turn laid the foundation for  funk, disco, hip-hop and  and rap music.

 

3) MUSIC SHOULD BE UPGRADED IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL SYLLABUS

Since the mid-1980’s we have created a generation of urban youth who mainly  listen/watch computerised techno-pop, music-videos and lip-synched performances. They are therefore unfamiliar with live popular band instruments and live performances;  which are  an absolute pre-requisite for the sort of music that is exportable to the ‘World Music’ market. One way to reverse this trend away from live popular peformance could be  stopped is  to reverse   the late 1980’s JSS ad SSS  [35]  school reform policy in respect to music. Music  should be re-instated as a separate subject in Junior Secondary Schools and re-made a core subject in Senior Secondary Schools. Besides helping establish the personal for the ‘World Music’ export sector,  research in many countries has shown that music as a part of one’s education  not only enhances musical creativity but also enhances verbal and mathematical skills, physical coordination and is a general intellectual toner . Although the JSS/SSS   re-organisation did demote music as a school[36] subject it did at the same time broaden the scope of music to include popular music. The introduction of sets of instrumental/recording equipment would be invaluable in teaching children to produce their own popular dance-music, sound engineering,  mixing and multi-track recording techniques. It might also be possible to bring in unemployed veteran musicians and concert performers [37]  to help teach  in areas such as improvisation, composition and general live performance stagecraft. 

 

5)      NCC SHOULD BECOME A FULL MINISTRY  POSSIBLY ATTACHED TO THE MININSTRY OF   TOURISM

As previously mentioned,  the fact that there is no representation of Culture ( including music and entertainment)  at Ministerial/Cabinet level has led to some missed opportunities – and this should be rectified as quickly as possible even if it means that the National Commission on Culture would be attached to an already existing Ministry, such as Education or Tourism.

 

I would suggest the NCC should be attached to Tourism for various reasons.  One is, as already  mentioned, local music and live entertainment are an important part of the tourist industry. Indeed there are even tourists coming to Ghana specifically for cultural reasons, with music and dance being the cornerstone[38].  It is these visitors who mainly complain about too much foreign music in Ghana and the lack of night-clubs that provide genuine African music. So putting Ghanaian music prominently on the ‘World Music’ market and  creating a vibrant live music scene back home helps boost foreign exchange earnings from these cultural  tourists. In short, tourism and culture are natural partners. Secondly because of the foreign exchange potential of Ghanaian dance-music I think it  should be put with a money-making Ministry rather than Education which needs an input of governmental money. This brings me to the third point. That is if Culture ( and therefore music and entertainment) are put with  Education then when the division of scarce resources is sent to the Ministry of Education and Culture the priority will always be for the money to go to Education. In short Culture will be Education’s poor brother,  whereas with the Ministry Tourism,  Culture can be an equal money-making partner.

 

6)WORLD BANK ASSISTANCE 

As already mentioned the  World Bank project to give grants and loans to six African countries has already started with Senegal. And if in the next round of Ghana/World Bank negotiations  ( which I believe are this month)  arts and culture can be added then monies can be routed to Ghana’s music industry. This, incidentally, comes from a separate World Bank cultural fund and so in no way can interfere with other World Bank projects. At the June 2oth World Bank meeting several possible areas were discussed in connection with the African music industy; including  assisting copyright collecting organisations, free legal aid for outstanding cases of royalty infringements of veteran artists, the use of computer technology (MP3, Napster,  etc,  systems)  in disseminating and collecting royalties from African music. Two others forms of assistance which are relevant to this paper on the exportability of Ghanaian music are listed below.

 a)  Micro-Loans  for Commercial Live Bands and their Venues

There are numerous  live performance  bands and concert parties in Ghana that have folded up through  lack of equipment   and spare parts. If Ghana can ratify the Arts and Culture section of its World Bank agreement so as to be able to tap this new fund to assist the African music industry it might be a good idea to extend the idea of World Bank micro-loans to farmers and small processing plants in the agricultural sector to the music sector, particularly  established bands and entertainment names that can pull crowds but need to get back on their commercial feet. The income from music is highly capricious and erratic and touring concert party bands often have to loan money and ‘bond’ themselves to wealthy patrons to play during the lucrative cocao-season. The bands cannot get the profits from  the peak season and so get caught in a spiral of debt.

Several bands I have known personally have gone to extraordinary lengths to stay together through   hard time by, for instance by going into  farming. Soft loans would be a much better alternative in all these cases. These micro-loans could also be extended to small clubs and recording studios that cater for live performances.

b) Sets of Band/Recording Equipment for Educational/Cultural Organisations

Due to the demise of live popular music  I would suggest to the World Bank that a grant is made available to Ghana for say 54 sets of popular band equipment and supporting recording equipment[39] to jump-start live  performance and recording in Ghana. Sets of these combined performing/recording equipment would go to the following. The ten Regional National Centers for Culture, the National Theatre, The Music  Departments of three  universities (Legon, Winneba and Cape Coast), the four branches of MUSIGA, the Ghana Old Musicians Welfare Associations, the Ghana Concert Party Union,  the John Tei School in Accra (that specializes in mathematics and music), the  AGORO Informal Education through Music Project at Cape Coast, Professor Nketia’s International  Center for African Music and Dance, the W.E.B. DuBois Center and thirty sets of equipment to three selected secondary schools from each of the country’s ten Regions.

 

CONCLUSION

 

I would  therefore appeal to the government to come to the aid of live highlife bands, concert groups and local creative artists  to enable them to meet the challenge of this millennium, put highlife on the international map and let this country reap the financial rewards from making local Ghanaian popular dance-music an ever re-newable  export.

 

Although I have discussed various ways of doing this,  the single most important one would be treat the Ghanaian entertainment industry as a potential non-traditional export sector and therefore provide a five ( or ten) year tax-holiday  and other investments  incentives for it. In short the government would not have to be spend scarce financial resources on the industry but rather give temporary tax waivers and consessions to it to allow the industry blossom.  This would allow the re-emergence of a vibrant live entertainment  sector that is a not only beneficial for Ghana’s internal creative  cultural development,  but is a vital pre-requisite for creating  the sort of music that would generate foreign exchange  -  by being  exportable abroad and  drawing to Ghana more  foreign tourists.

 

 

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APPENDIX A)  WORLD BANK MEETING PRESS REVIEW

(July 2000)

 

In Washington  DC on the 20^th of June this year  a one day workshop was held by the   World Bank and  the Yale based Science Policy Center  (Director Frank Penna) to discuss the commercial growth  potential of the music industry in Africa – focusing at first on in six African countries  (South  Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Mali). The World Bank spends between 265 and 300 million dollars a year  on loans and aid to aspects of  culture. But so far none on the African music industry – in spite of  the  World Music sector (that includes African music) having expanded 40% a year for the last five years in the United States and  now comprises  14% (5 billion dollars) of global record sales.

 

            At the meeting  the World Bank was represented by Ms. Kreszentia Duer of its Social Development Section and Michael Finger the leading economist of its  Poverty Reduction  and Economic Network (PREN) department. Others involved included the following.: Gerald Seligman of EMI,   Coenrad Visser who  is the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) representative for South Africa, Jerome Reichman of the Vanderbilt University in Nashville and an expert on folkloric copyright, Phillip Hardy the founding editor of the UK  Music and Copyright Magazine, the musician and musicologist John Collins who teaches at the University of Ghana,  Scott Burnett the Marketing Executive for Global Media of IBM, and the economist Keith Maskus of the University of Colorado at Boulder. Others were the Nigerian WIPO representative Ms. Funkasi Koroye-Crooks,   Jayashree Watal of the Institute for International Economics and the economist and Nobel prize-winner Amartya Sen of Trinity College  of Cambridge University, UK.

 

            Areas discussed were micro-credit loans for the musicians, bands,  clubs and recording studios in the six African countries; the setting up of digital studio-cum- websites in Africa for distributing locally produced music (by MP3, Napster, etc)  and the modalities  for collecting royalties from them; technical assistance for African royalty collecting organisations.

 

The main point that Professor John Collins made at the meeting  concerning Ghana was that even though it produced Africa’s first distinctive genre of popular music  ( highlife that goes back to the 1880’s) and  had a pioneering African music industry at independence  - highlife music is almost completely absent in the lucrative World Music market that has  emerged since the early 1980’s. Reasons for this include political upheavals and economic problems in Ghana,  a musical brain-drain and super-taxes on the music industry.. As a result local gospel music ( of the untaxed churches) has filled the vacuum, or cheap to run/produce local techno-pop styles have emerged: such as disco-like ‘Burgher Highlife’ or the current wave of ‘Hip-Life’ ( i.e. Hip-Hop Highlife). Unfortunately local gospel is internationally non-commercial and local  techno-pop  does away with live musicians (drummers, horns, etc) is  so is not appreciated by World Music fans, who prefer a more live and  rootsy sound. Ghana therefore needs imputs from the World Bank that will enhance the live  music industry by providing band equipment to schools,  give grants to local musical NGO’s  and micro-credit loans to bands, night-clubs and live-format recording studios (of which there are practically none in Ghana). This will help Ghanaians create an exportable form of highlife that can tap the present World Music market and gain Ghana precious foreign exchange. The World Bank has yet to endorse this initiative but an indication of its interest is that the Bank’s Director, James Wolfensohn, attended the pre-workshop lunch.

 

APPENDIX B)  FIGURES RELEVANT  TO THE GOVERNMENT CONSIDERING  A TAX  HOLIDAY FOR THE LOCAL ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY

(Prepared for MUSIGA , by Professor John Collins, August 2000)

 

A)      POTENTIAL WORLD MUSIC  INCOME FOR GHANA PER ANNUM

 

1)      MUSIC SALES 

Total global music sales                           =  36,000,000,000 (thirty-six billion dollars)

Total global ‘World Music’  sales 1999   =   5,000,000,000   (five billion dollars) [40]

African component of above ( 1/4^th) [41]     =   1,250,000,000 (one and a quarter billion)

Ghana proportion - take 3.6% of this 1.25            

billion African  figure   (This equals the

Ghanaian  population (22 million) proportion of the

total African population (600 million)       =        45,000,000  (45 million dollars)

 

2)      ROYALTIES

Total Global royalties in 1997  [42]              =    6,300,000,000 (six point three billion)

World Music royalties (14% of above )     =       880,000,000  (approx.)

African component of this (1/4^th )              =       220,000,000

Ghanaian proportion (3.6% as before)       =    7,900,000  (approx.)

 

3)      CULTURAL TOURISM

Although this figure is impossible to estimate, foreign exchange comes to Ghana via tourists attracted to local music that includes live performance highlife. They do not usually enjoy local computerised techno-pop and so Ghana is loosing some tourists to Mali, Senegal and Guinea where there is a vibrant live popular music scene.

 

THEREFORE TOTAL POTENTIAL GHANAIAN FOREIGN INCOME FROM WORLD MUSIC SALES  PER YEAR =  45 MILLION DOLLARS ( SALES)  PLUS  SEVEN POINT NINE MILLION DOLLARS  ( FOREIGN ROYALTIES).

 

GRAND TOTAL PER ANNUM  =  52, 9OO,OOO   ( APPROX. FIFTY-THREE MILLION  DOLLARS )

 

 

B)       INTERNAL GHANAIAN MUSIC INDUSTRY AND INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE  TAX  PER YEAR

 

1999  Internal music sales Ghana (IFPI [43] figures)                 =  25,000,000    dollars

Estimated IRS tax on this  is 20%  ( from import                    =   5,000,000    dollars

duties, VAT, income tax, entertainment tax, and portion of

blank cassette levy and  hologram tax, etc)

 

 

APPENDIX C )  SOME EXAMPLES OF  INTERNATIONAL/WORLD MUSIC DISINTEREST IN CURRENT HIGH-TECH  GHANAIAN POPULAR MUSIC

 

The following are some journalistic examples of both foreign and Ghanaian disdain for current hi-tech Ghanaian popular music.  The Sterns African Record Centre Tradewinds magazine (Vol. 5, No. 5 September/October 1994, London) praised the Ghanaian highlife musician Jewel Ackah for not featuring "that horrible cheap drum machine that seems to be everywhere (in Ghana) recently."  Baba Abdullai, writing about the Danish 'Image of Africa `96 Festival' in an article entitled "Why Highlife Wasn't There," (Ghana Weekly Spectator, July 13, 1996, p.4 ) suggests the reason that the festival organizers picked Senegalese and Malian musicians and not Ghanaian ones was that the former "rely heavily on percussion (whereas) our highlife is weak on percussion and heavy on digital sound."  Dave Yowell of the Sultan recording-studio in London which often records Ghanaian artists, complained (in a Ghanaian Statesman article called "Let's Hear It Live" May 21, 1995, p.10) that "in West Africa now, it seems there is too much emphasis on the use of computers . . . when you only have a singer and a computer you have the personality of the singer and zero personality of the computer."  An article in the West African Journal (December 18, 1996, p. 1286), called "Singing the Blues," K. Krante bemoaned modern Ghanaian Highlife, saying that "reeling off a string of wise sayings over a computer generated sound-track should not automatically confer hit status on the song or singer . . . it seems that mediocrity has been elevated almost to an art.  Technology has contributed more than its fair share to the situation.  Twenty years ago real live musicians would have been needed to cut an album."  Enimil Ashon of the Ghana Mirror ( June 10^th., 2000) talking on Nat Brew’s attempt to break into World Music market by following  Ghana’s Pan African Orchestra’s  1988 success of  utilising local rhythms  compares this to other Ghanaian pop which “either mightily attempts  to copy (e.g. reggae)….…or is a fusion that is 70 percent foreign and only 30 percent Ghanaian….. there is very little Ghanaian-ness in current Ghanaian music.” And according to the Tower Guide to World ( 2000/1, page “Ghana has seen it legendary highlife musical bass fall away over recent decades….and samplers and drum machines have replaced musicians and shoddy dance music has become the norm”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX D )  MUSIC/ENTERTAINMENT SEGMENT OF THE ANNUAL FOREIGN EXCHANGE INCOME FROM TOURISM

 

Tourism is currently (after gold and timber) Ghana’s third largest foreign exchange  earner – which in 2000 grossed about 350 million dollars. Ten percent of the foreign exchange that tourists actually spends was estimated in 1998 [44]  to come from what foreign visitors spend on recreation and entertainment – of which dance music  play a major role  Thus the dance and music area of tourism is helping generate about  35 million dollars a year for the country. An increase in the live performance component of local Ghanaian  dance-music would attract more tourists to the country, such as those interested in ‘World Music’,  and thus boost the tourist trade in general.

 

 

CONCLUSION :           THE TOTAL POTENTIAL MONIES TO BE MADE FROM THE GHANAIAN DANCE-MUSIC AREA

 

Taking the three already discussesed areas of the music industry’s annual money generation we can add them in the following way.

 

1)      Potential ‘World  Music’ foreign exchange earnings…………………53 million $

2)      Internal Ghanaian music sales (minimum)  Cedi equivalent of ……...25 million $

3)      Recreation/Entertainment segment of Tourism…………………..…   35 million $

 

    TOTAL     113 MILLION$ PER YEAR

                                                                               

 

IN SHORT: WITH A FEW STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENTS TO THE INDUSTRY (PARTICULARLY TAX CONCESSIONS, ) THE  GHANAIAN MUSIC SECTOR COULD EASILY GENERATE THE EQUIVALENT OF  (April 2000 figures)

 

800 BILLION CEDIS   A YEAR

 

 

·        THIS WOULD IN TURN PROVIDE EMPLOYMENT FOR  ARTISTS,

·        ATTRACT MORE TOURISTS,

·        ENCOURAGE THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRADITIONAL RESOURCES BY THE YOUTH

·        PUT GHANAIAN MUSIC ONTO THE WORLD MUSIC MAP