PAPER  ON AFRICAN MUSIC INDUSTRY  BY PROFESSOR  JOHN COLLINS FOR  WORKSHOP OF THE WORLD BANK AND THE POLICY SCIENCES CENTER INC.  ON DEVELOPING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN AFRICA, WASHINGTON DC,  JUNE 20^TH , 2000

 

 

(nb  has been slightly edited and modified after World Bank meeting)

 

 

A )  WORLD MUSIC WORLD-WIDE SALES

 

The sector of the international recording trade known as ‘World Music’ emerged as a distinct category in the 1980’s. It began with the growing interest in the popular music of sub-Saharan Africa  in the early 1980’s  such as the juju-music, highlife, maringa and Afrobeat of English-speaking West Africa, the mbalax and electro-griot music of Francophone West Africa, the soukous of Central African, the mbaqanga and chimurenga music of Southern Africa and rai music from Algeria and Morocco. The word ‘World Music’  itself was coined by a group of independent recording companies and popular music journalists in London in 1986/7 [1] to broaden the marketing  potential of African popular music or ‘Afro-pop’ as it had been originally called. Although today World Music therefore includes other categories of music such as Cuban, Latin-American, Arabic, Indian, eastern European and Asian popular and folk styles  the African popular music component  represents roughly half of the sales of World Music.[2] Moreover Afro-Pop is the engine that created and still drives the World Music phenomenon

            Currently it is estimated that World Music constitutes about 1 percent of world recording sales (as compared to say 3 percent for jazz). As world sales are an estimated 40 billion dollars, the 1 percent  World Music fraction of this is 400 million dollars – of which at least  half is African popular music: which gives  an annual  figure of about 200 million dollars.[3]

            It should be noted that prior to 1982/3 Afro-Pop and World Music did not exist as a distinct commercial segment of the international recording market and (with a few notable exceptions [4] ) the sales of African music was limited to a few specialists shops and records companies  (like Folkways ) that were solely for specialists or African students living abroad. In short in less than twenty years the world sales of Afro-Pop component of World Music has shot up  from almost zero top 200 million dollars per year

 

 

 

 

 

 

B)   THE ACTUAL EXPANSION OF WORLD MUSIC FROM THE EARLY 1980’s TO DATE

 

 

1)      RECORDING COMPANIES THAT DEAL WITH WORLD MUSIC

(Information from 1995 Afropop Book, New York)

 

United States =   21

Europe = 15.

 

 

2)      LEADING  RECORD SHOPS THAT DEAL IN WORLD MUSIC (Afropop Book )

 

North America = 66

Europe = 29

 

 

3)      INCREASED RECORD/CD SALES OF WORLD MUSIC

Increasing international sales of Afro-Pop ( later renamed World Music) began in Britain France, Belgium and Holland in the early 1980’s. By the late 1980’s the market had expanded to the United States and Japan. Some specific examples of this trajectory follows:

·        Sterns Guide To African Music (vol 2)  lists seven African bands that sold in excess of 50,000 albums between 1983-9

·        Paul Simons 1986 Graceland’s abum sells 14 million copies

·        Mory Kanta’s Yeke Yeke hit single record sells 1.2 million copies in 1988

·        Sterns Guide estimates that 5000 different African albums and CD’s were released between  1987-92.

·        In 1989 Paul Simon’s use of a Ghanaian highlife song in his Rhythm of the Saints album generated 80,000 dollars in royalties for the Ghanaian Copyright  agencies.

·        Michel Sanchek and  Eric Moquet’s 1992 hit Deep Jungle (hi-tech background plus Congolese Pygmy and Pacific Island vocals) sells two-and-a-half million copies and some of its songs are licensed to Coca-Cola, Porsche. Body Shop and Sony.

·        The 1992 Sterns Guide  (Vol 2)  claims that the Japanese market for African popular music is between one third and one half the total international market.[5]

·        In 1994 the biggest UK single was Youssou N’Dour and Nineh Cherry’s song Seven Seconds hits the European charts.

·        The current global sales of World Music is currently reckoned around 400 million dollars. Half of this is Afro-Pop which therefore represents sales of 200 million dollars

·        A record by Mali’s Ali Fafak Tuore and guitarist Ry Cooder sold 400,000

 

4)      BOOKS SINCE 1985 ON AFRICAN POPULAR MUSIC AND WORLD MUSIC

Since 1985  forty books have been written exclusively on Afro-Pop and World Music that have been published in America and Europe.[6] None were written before this date.

 

5)      NEW MAGAZINES THAT DEAL WITH  WORLD MUSIC

United States (Rhythm Music Magazine and The Beat),  United Kingdom (Folk Roots and Trade Winds), France (N’dule Magazine), Denmark ( Djembe),  Holland ( Oor),  Japan (Latina and ‘Noise’).

 

6)      US GRAMMY AWARD FOR WORLD MUSIC

In 1991 The American National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences changes it grammy award designation of ‘Ethnic and Traditional’ ‘ to ‘World Music’

 

7)      CROSS-OVERS: WESTERN POP AND JAZZ STARS WHO HAVE COLLABORATED WITH AFRICAN MUSICIANS SINCE THE 1980’s

Various large-scale collaborations have been done, starting with Bob Geldoff’s initiative, in concerts to support famine relief  and  denounce Apartheid: such as Live Aid, Band Aid, We Are The World and  the 1988 Mandela Support concert at Wembley Stadium in London.  A list of some individual pop and jazz artists who have worked and recorded with African artists  since 1980 follows.

Brian Eno and David Byrne (Talking Heads) and African musicians

Mick Fleetwood and Ghanaian musicians

Peter Gabriel (ex Genesis rock-band) and Senegalese Youssou N’Dour

Guitarist Ry Cooder and Mali’s Ala Faka Toure

Bob Geldoff (ex Boomtown Rats) and Youssou N’Dour.

Paul Simon with Ladysmith Black Mambazo and then West African musicians

Carlos Santana and Mali’s Salif Keita.

David Essex and Uganda’s Afrigo Band

Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page with North African drummers

Stevie Wonder and Nigeria’s Sonny Ade

Grateful Dead’s Micky Hart and African and Indian drummers

Herbie Hancock and Gambian musician Suso Foday Musa.

Bassist Joe Zawinal and Salif Keita.

Randy Weston and North African drummers

Pharoah Saunders and North African drummers

France’s Jean  Luc Ponty and African musicians.

Jean Jacques Goldman and Algerian Rai stars Khaled’s huge European hit ‘Aisha’

Dolly Parton and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Sting and Algerian Rai star Cheb Mami.

Real World labels Afro-Celtic Sound System release with Irish and African musicians.

Taj Msahal and Toumani Diabete

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C)  THE REASONS FOR THE COMMERCIAL  EXPLOSION OF AFRO-POP/WORLD MUSIC SINCE  THE EARLY 1980’S

 

 

1)      CONTINUATION  OF GLOBAL BLACK MUSIC EXPLOSION

In long-term perspective the world-wide acceptance of African popular music in the late 20th century is a logical continuation of the global  emergence of Black American and Caribbean dance music from the late 19^th century (i.e. ragtime, jazz, blues, samba, rumba, calypso, R&B, reggae, soul, ’hot’ gospel, hip-hop, ragga, zouk, rap, etc)

 

2)      INTRINSICALLY INTERNATIONAL

Unlike traditional African music contemporary African popular music is a synthesis of African, Western, Black American and in some cases Arabic influences. It is therefore intrinsically an international idiom

 

3)      EARLY INTEREST OF JAZZ AND ROCK STARS

From the 1960’s jazz musicians such as John Coltrane and Max Roach became interested in African music. During the seventies this interest was extended to rock stars. Ginger Baker and Paul McCartney (with Band in the Run) visited West Africa. The Rolling Stones worked with Nigerian Ginger Johnson whilst the Grateful Dead sometimes opened its shows with the drummer Babatunde Olutunje. Brian Eno  and Mick Fleetwood (of Fleetwood Mac) visited and recorded in Ghana in 1980.

 

4)      REGGAE AS A STEPPING-STONE BACK TO AFRICA

The Rastafarian and back-to-African-roots theme in Jamaican reggae of the seventies encouraged many to look towards (and even visit) Africa. This included not only West Indians such as Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley and Greg Isaacs but also white reggae bands such as the Police from the United States  and the Beat, UB40 and Specials of  Britain

 

5)      THE DEATH OF BOB MARLEY

When Bob Marley died in 1980/1 his company Island Records decided to look for their next super-star in Africa rather than the Caribbean.. They decided upon Nigeria’s top juju-music star, Sonny Star, who from 1983 did a number of successful European tours and whose Synchro-System album sold in excess of 50,000.

 

6)      BRITISH AFRO-POP  SCENE IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES

In 1978 the BBC launched its first series of programs on African Pop called In the African Groove. [7]In 1980 the London based Sierra Leone producer Akie Deen had a number of  hits with disco versions of his countries maringa music In 1982 the Genesis  rock-band member Peter Gabriel established  the annual WOMAD (World Festival  of Music and Dance) that featured some African bands. In 1982 Island Records released Sounds Afrique and the following year the King Sonny Ade album mentioned above. From 1983-5 a number of independent record labels catering for a growing interest in African popular music amongst British youth  sprang up in London. Unlike the earlier companies operating in Africa such as Decca, EMI and  Phillips/Polygram, whose African releases were mainly for the internal African market, these independent labels catered for the growing number of white African music fans. These included Sterns African Records, Earthworks, Oval and  Globestyle. ( by 1992 they numbered fourteen [8]) These initially endorsed  music coming from English speaking African and later added Francophone African material coming out of Paris  (see next). Leading radio disc jockeys (like Charlie Gillet, John Peel and  Andy Kershaw)  began to play Afro-Pop and many mixed British/African bands  sprang up playing this idiom (Jazira, Alpha Waves, Highlife Internationals, Ivory Coasters, Taxi Pata Pata, etc.)

 

7)      FRENCH AFRO-POP SCENE IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES

In the 1970’s France had a four million Afro-Caribbean and African  immigrant population from its colonies in the French Antilles, Algeria and Francophone Africa.. By the late 1970’s there were hundreds of African musicians in Paris including Manu Dibango, Pierre Akendengue, Vicky Edema and Algerian Rai musicians. Recordings of the small but substantial market in Francophone African music (including that of Zaire/Congo)  was catered by companies such as  Sonodisc,  Pathe-Marconi, Son Afrique and Melodisque. However, things took a quantum leap in 1981 with the multi-cultural approach of the Mitterand government whose Minister of Culture, Jack  Lang, helped fund and organise tours by African bands. As a result and in addition to the older recording companies a number of new  independent ones were formed;such as Syllart, Celluloid, Gefraco, Toure Jim, Cobalt, Wotre Musique, Ngrapy, Mayala,  FNAC, etc:  several were owned and managed by Africans [9] . By the late 1980’s Paris  became the mecca for musicians from French-speaking  Africans  to record and  market and in 1988 the Guinean musician Mory Kanta sold a quarter of a million copies of his Yeke Yeke hit single. Today the  music CD’s of Afro-Pop stars in Paris like Khaled, Sam Mangwana, Salif Keita, Rigo Star and  Kanda Bongoman regularly sell fifty thousand plus.

 

8)      UNITED STATES  AFRO-POP SCENE AFTER THE MID EIGHTIES

The event that took the United States into the commercial World Music arena was the release of Paul Simon’s Gracelands album in 1986 which combined rock with South African music and which sold six million copies. Other contributing factors are the large number of Africans who have recently settled in North America (particularly New York, Washington and Toronto) and the teaching of traditional African drumming at schools and universities by West Africans in particular. In 1988 American Public/Radio begins its Afro Pop series run by Sean Barlow and George Collinet[10]

 

 

D )  INABILITY OF AFRICAN COUNTRY’S TO MORE STRONGLY BENEFIT  FROM THE CURRENT COMMERCIAL WORLD MUSIC BOOM :  GENERAL

 

In spite of the rise of World Music since the early 1980’s sub-Saharan Africa itself has not commercially benefited very much from this opening in the international market for a number of reasons  which are presented below.

 

1)      PERENNIAL PROBLEMS SINCE THE 1980’S

In spite of the high hopes of independence in the sixties and  seventies,   the eighties ushered in chronic problems of servicing debts, corruption and inefficiency, wars, military governments and now the AIDS epidemic. For instance landlocked and infertile Mali is the world’s fifteenth poorest nation, Senegal has its Casemance separatist problem and border dispute  with Mauretania, The Democratic Republic of the Congo is at civil war, Nigeria has had  sixteen years of corrupt army rule and after twenty years of one-party government any of Zimbabwe’s leading musicians oppose President Mugabe.[11] Except in the case of South Africa, the music industry has therefore declined or does not exist at all.

 

2)      NO CD MANUFACTURING PLANTS

Except for Sough Africa there is no CD manufacturing in sub-Saharan Africa. Either, as in the case of Nigeria, Ghana and the Cote d’Ivoire, there were  vinyl record pressing industries  that had  collapsed by the mid-eighties [12]   or local music production (often pirated)  has only existed on cassette: such as in Liberia, Mali, Senegal,  Niger, Benin, Togo, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. – and Ghana which has reverted to cassette production

 

3)      NEGATIVE IMPACT OF NEW TECHNOLOGY ON LIVE PERFORMANCE

Over the last twenty year in some African countries there has been  a gradual demise of live performance/recordings the with the introduction of digital studios, local techno-pop and lip-synching music videos.  Although new digital equipment makes it much cheaper and easier to compose and record it  has also resulted in many musicians (especially drummers and horn players) becoming employed as they are replaced with drum-machines and synthesizers.  Some examples of African high-tech popular music includes South African bubble-gum and kwaito music, the music of the Congolese band Bisso na Bisso, Zimbabwean zim-rap, Ghanaian burgher-highlife and hip-life, and Wierd MC and other hip-hoppers of Nigeria  In addition, the emergence of mobile discos and D.J.’s in the dance venues and  imported/local television and video films has killed off live bands  and  travelling theatrical groups [13]

 

4)      AN UPSURGE OF LOCAL GOSPEL MUSIC IN THE  CHURCHES

One reaction  of African artists to the decline of the recording industry, the rise of piracy  and demise of live the live dance-music scene  is that many have moved into the independent African churches (which allow dancing for worship) . This is the case  in, Nigeria,  Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) , Tanzania and South Africa [14] and in Ghana which will be discussed later. This move from secular to sacred due to economic decline   is similar to  what happened in the United States after the 1929 Great Crash – when the American music industry folded up and many African-American blues and jazz musicians went  into the churches and created hot’ gospel. [15]  Whereas hot gospel helped produce the soul-music of the western  post-war boom period, this commercialisation has not been able to take place in Africa due the economic problems already mentioned.

 

5)      THE MUSIC PIRACY PROBLEM

Piracy is rampant in Africa, especially where cassette production dominates (see previous list)   After Ghana’s record industry collapsed  it moved into cassette production and before the introduction in 1992 of the anti-piracy ‘banderole’ stamp for cassettes and CD’s by the government Copyright Administration   piracy was estimated to be 90% of the market . The Nigerian record industry collapsed in the mid-eighties and by the end of that decade music piracy (mainly cassette)  was estimated to be 80%.[16]. An attempt  in 1993 to introduce a banderole system completely failed after a couple of years despite  efforts by the Nigerian Copyright Council (established in 1988), the Nigerian branch of the International Federation of Phonogram Industry (IFPI), the Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria (PMAN) and the Association of Nigerian Artists. [17]  Today piracy  (audio and video) is so rampant in Nigeria that in one of the main centers of counterfeiting , the town of Onitsha, the pirates are armed.[18]  As CD burning  facilities become more easily obtainable piracy is likely to switch from cassette to CD.

 

6)      COPYRIGHT ORGANISATIONS IN AFRICA

Two quite different royalty collecting organisations have been operating in Africa.  In the French peaking countries since independence these (e.g. Senegal’s BSDA and Mali’s BMDA) are government controlled. In the English speaking countries on the other hand. they are private  collecting agencies – and except for South Africa’s SAMRO (South  African Music Royalty Organisation) they have proved to be too small to be viable. Both the  Kenyan  MCSK and Zimbabwean ZIMRA has almost up whilst the Music Copyright organisation of Nigeria (MCSN) has taken the Nigerian government to court – as it was formed before the Nigerian Copyright Decree of 1988 and therefore refuses to register with the Nigerian Copyright Council..  An early attempt in Ghana to set up the private Copyright Protection Society (COPS) during the late 1960’s failed due to corruption and the current  tussle between the Ghana Musicians Union (MUSIGA) and the Government Copyright Administration over control of the private collecting organisation COSGA will be discussed later on.

 

7)      DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FRANCOPHONE AND ANGLOPHONE AFRICA IN RESPECT TO WORLD MUSIC SALES

The difference between French and English speaking Africa goes much further than the differing  government versus private copyright collecting modalities discussed above – as other marked differences arose from the contrasting approaches of  French and British colonisation (and de-colonisation process) . The British policy of ‘indirect rule’ through traditional chiefs and emirs led to more cultural blending and the early appearance (from the late 19^th century) of acculturated popular music and entertainment  forms in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Kenya. The French colonial policy of ‘direct rule’ from Paris was  more opposed to cultural blending and therefore (except in the Congo) popular local urban  music and dance  styles did not really  appear until after independence in the 1960’s. Furthermore,  whereas after independence Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya attempted to establish theirs own  record industries the French-speaking countries (except Guinea [19]) remained tied to the French franc and metropolitan France itself. As a result Francophone African popular music has tended to be recorded and produced in France and Paris itself has become the Mecca for many artists  of the French-speaking countries.

            Because Francophone music has been produced in studios and factories in Paris it has been more successful on the World Music market than the music of English speaking Africa [20] –  which ironically were the first to produce distinct African popular idioms but whose local recording facilities are more outmoded. African music from Paris on the other hand  is simply more sophisticated technically, is more cosmopolitan  (e.g. blended with Zouk of the French Antilles)  and is of course physically situated in a western record market.

            Nevertheless, it should be noted that although Francophone African artists  like Youssou N’Dour, Salif Keita, Mory Kanta  and Baaba Maal are enjoying royalties from World Music CD sales, some of which they  re-invest in their countries of origin, the production and manufacturing profits remain in the metropolitan country.

 

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E)  THE INABILITY OF AFRICAN COUNTRIES TO BENEFIT  MORE  FULLY FROM THE CURRENT COMMERICAL WORLD MUSIC BOOM : THE CASE OF GHANA

 

 

 

Ghana created the first distinct form of acculturated African popular music (the brass-band Adaha variety of 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. As most people know Ghana was the first African country to gain independence (in 1957) and its leader, Kwame Nkrumah, endorsed highlife and local popular entertainment, encouraged the establishment of two performance unions and set up government sponsored highlife dance bands and concert parties ( a form of local comic highlife opera) . 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[21]. 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. 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 top highlife dance-bands, dozens of Ga ‘cultural groups’ seventy or so highlife guitar bands and concert parties, dozens of Afro0rock fusion bands like Hedzolleh, Basa-Basa, Boombaya, Big Beats and Ogyataana – and when the Arts Council help  school student pop-band competitions over a hundred  groups would take  part..

However, by the time the international commercial interest  in Afro-Pop/World Music began  from the early 1980’s a number  of set-backs had occurred and continue to occur that has prevented  and is preventing Ghana from cashing in on this boom.

The following is a list of these various problems

 

1)      THE ECONOMIC DECLINE OF THE LATE 1970’S

Due to army  government mismanagement and corruption (‘kalabule’) during the latter part of the 1970’s the country went into  economic decline and record production dropped to a quarter of its previous output. Consequently many[22] 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[23] that were beginning to mushroom on the country[24] 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 [25]

            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 from 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  [26] Indeed  several journalists have referred to the dislike of western World Music fans to computerised Ghanaian music ( see attached appendix Two)

 

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[27] and local pop, highlife and concert bands These problems were compounded in 1983 by a drought, electricity short-falls and the expulsion of over one million Ghanaian

from Nigeria with only two weeks notice [28]

 

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

 After the curfew was lifted in 1894 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 called  ‘burger highlife’). New digital studios sprang up to cater for this music (and more recently computerised vernacular rap variant known as hip-life i.e. hip-hop plus highlife).  These  have largely  done away with live drummers and horn players so that on music videos and even live performance the songs had to be lip synched. During the late eighties the local video market started to boom and although this employed 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[29]

 

 

4)      ATTEMPT  TO LEGALISE CASSETTE PIRACY IN THE MID 1980’s

Due to the collapse of the vinyl recording industry in the late 1970’s the country moved towards  cassette production  in the eighties – mainly carried out by the estimated 5000 pirates operating  from small kiosks. In 1986/7 eight hundred of these operators wanted to legalise their position and so  formed the Ghana Tape Recordists Association (GTRA) which made a deal with the Ghanaian collecting organisation COSGA ( Copyright Society of Ghana) and one of the local producers union , the NPPA (National Phonogram Producers Association)  to pay a blanket license per kiosk per month to duplicate local material belonging to COSGA and   NPPA members. Despite  the GTRA paying out 4.5 million cedis of this blanket license (circa 250,000 dollars ) the whole idea was suddenly shelved in 1989 after objections to this legalisation of piracy by the government Copyright Administration, the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) ,  a local producer

Union called the PPS (Phonogram Producers Society) and the Swedish (now London) based International  Federation of Phonogram  Industry  (IFPI)that represents record companies, including  some of the world’s large music multi-nationals. Indeed the PPS became the local Ghanaian  branch of the IFPI and the IFPI itself gave MUSIGA 20,000 dollars to launch an anti-piracy

Crusade and task force – which was duly done[30].

            As a result a whole generation of young potential local music producers were re-criminalised and Ghana lost a window of  opportunity to create its own cottage industry

based on the  decentralised  and appropriate technology of cassette production (cf. old vinyl pressing plants and CD manufacturing) that included a modality for paying the artists and recording producers [31]  If they had been legalised they would not of course have been pirates

Beside  the question of anti-piracy and individual rights, the main local  objection to the GTRA  legalisation was that their  products were shoddy and sub-standard – however by simple process of market competition the better producers would have come to the top: but this was never given time to happen. The IFPI had quite another agenda. In the face of cassette piracy they were phasing out vinyl recordings and bringing in CD technology which they thought would help them re-centralise the world’s music industry back in the metropolitan industrial countries. The last thing they wanted was for some Developing Nations to  initiate a third alternate and develop an independent cassette technology and legal framework to operate it. Ghana was thus a local casualty of an international decision.

 

5)      THE CLASH BETWEEN GHANA’S MUSICIAN’S UNION AND ROYALTY COLLECTING ORGANISATIONS

In 1992 MUSIGA (formed 1974) walked out of the COSGA (formed 1986) conference as, taking into account that 90% of COSGA royalties income came from musical works, they considered they were under-represented: which indeed they were with musicians  only having  two COSGA executives out of 12 and  the remaining ten being composed of choreographers, photographers, poets and literary people. COSGA, a private collecting organisation, was then put under the temporary care of the government Copyright Administration set up in 1985 when the government made new copyright laws.. Inspite of  the Copyright Administration introducing the  anti-piracy banderole that same year as the 1992 COSGA conference - which drastically reduced the level of piracy[32] -  MUSIGA  and the Copyright Administration/COSGA organisations became at  odds with each. And have been ever since, with MUSIGA claiming that the Copyright Administration was using COSGA funds to set up rival music unions (eg. veterans and a professional  musicians union) and demanding that   COSGA should be restricted to just  musicians or even that MUSIGA itself should be the collecting organisation.  This latter demand stems from the historical fact in Ghana that it was MUSIGA that initially spearheaded the struggle for new copyright laws from 1979 [33].

            Making things even more complicated was that in  1997 two ginger-group interim committees were established within COSGA and MUSIGA  which claimed banderoles were being counterfeited and accused both the Copyright Administration and MUSIGA of embezzling COSGA funds  Because of the confusion copyright enforcement suffered and a Kumasi High Court gave a ruling in favour of  Ashanti Region bars and restaurants who were refusing to pay COSGA performance royalties for the commercial use of pre-recorded cassettes  and no modality was  sorted out for the numerous FM stations that were springing up ( the first was in 1994 [34] ) to pay  a similar performance tax to COSGA for airplay.

            In 1998 things got so confused the Vie President  John  Atta-Mills set up two government probes into COSGA, MUSIGA and the music industry. As a result MUSIGA was accused if visa racketeering, the COSGA accounts were audited and then re-distributed, the hologram was introduced to replace the banderole,  the Kumasi High Court ruling was overturned, some  air-play royalties were collected from both state and private radio stations and a date for new COSGA elections were arranged for March 2000. However MUSIGA rejected the hologram, put a court injunction on the COSGA congress taking place and claimed piracy was on the increase. The Ghana Old Musicians Welfare Association (GOMAWA) in turn demands accountability from MUSIGA  for income between 1997-9.

 

6)      THE FOLKLORIC TAX ON GHANAIANS

In 1991 royalties from Paul Simon’s song Spirit Voices  on his 1989 Rhythm of the Saints album that utilised  the Ghanaian song Yaa Amponsah  generated  16,000 dollars (today 80,000 dollars) that was used by the Copyright Administration to establish the National Folklore Board of Trustees to make a register of Ghanaian folklore and to monitor its use by foreign nationals. [35]This was in line with a WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) recommendation to protect Third World folklore by having its commercial use in  First World countries generating  a folklore royalty that would be repatriated to the country of origin. Because of an ambiguity of the Ghanaian 1985 Copyright Law on this matter concerning which type of person should pay this tax and seek government permission to commercially utilise  folklore (it does not say whether the person is a Ghanaian or a foreigner) the Folklore Board in 1996  interpreted this to mean that it should include Ghanaians and began collecting a tax (added to the banderole one) for Ghanaians producing cassettes that used their own  folklore.[36]  In 1997 the Copyright Administration drafted a new law Copyright Bill that clearly included Ghanaians having to pay a folkloric tax which was rejected by writers and performing artists at two noisy public forums on that matter that year.[37] Nevertheless, as of today the government Copyright Administration is still trying to get the bill presented to parliament.

 

 

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

After the economic problems of the late 1970’s and curfew  the post 1986 IMF/World Bank inspired structural adjustments helped the Ghanaian economy pick up. However this boom did not effect music business – especially live bands – due to  numerous taxes (in addition to the folkloric one) by Internal Revenue and the Customs and Excise prevention Service of the Ministry of Internal Revenue. These currently include  the following [38]

 

1.        A super import duty of 160% on band instruments that are classed as luxury items.

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..

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 explains one of the reasons that local church gospel highlife music has boomed in Ghana since the mid 1980’s. However in 1995 A copyright Administrator suggested  in a newspaper article [39] that gospel music based on public domain (that is usually free in the West [40]) should be paid for by churches. And very recently the Internal Revenue Services are suggesting that churches  should pay the usual income taxes for some of their projects; including gospel  music production.

            On the other hand some musicians got together in 1999 and rather suggested in a petition that  as music had bloomed in the churches  due to no taxation, the government should rather extend a tax holiday to the whole commercial music to stimulate live bands and create a non-computerised style of music that would attract tourists and could be exported on the World Music  market; both of which would generate foreign exchange (See attached  appendix Three)

 

 

8)  SEEMINGLY LITTLE  GOVERNMENT REGARD FOR    MUSIC AND THE LOCAL MUSIC INDUSTRY

In spite of the governments initiating  copyright legislation laws and administration and the Vice president’s attempt to mediate there seems to be little interest in the educational or commercial.  potential of music. In addition to the blind spot of the Ministry of Internal Revenue attitude  to the music business discussed above I will present four other examples of  this governmental blind-spot to music

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. And for the Senior Secondary Schools music was demoted from a core subject to an optional and as a result music in many  S.S. Schools has been dropped altogether[41]  .

2.      In the 1970’ and 1980’s Culture was part of the Ministry of Tourism and then  Ministry of Education. When finally it was given a separate status in the mid eighties it was demoted from a full Ministry to a National Commission on Culture.

3.      The performing arts do not feature at all  in the government’s  Vision 2020 policy that they hope will raise Ghana to a middle income level nation in the  future.[42]

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  [43]

5.       

 

 CONCLUSION

            Although Ghana pioneered Afro-pop and had an established   local music industry  up until the mid 1970’s, a number  of factors have led to its collapse and inability to profit from the current World Music boom. These include  the general economic decline of the country in late seventies, political upheavals, several years of night curfew, no tax waivers for music sponsorship for private business, over taxation of  live bands and the music industry and a general governmental  blind-spot to the commercial potential of  local music as a foreign exchange earner (i.e. from tourism and the world market)

            It must be stated here that  since independence and unlike in neighbouring Nigeria and the Cote d’Ivoire[44],  no Ghanaian musician has ever been able to  become wealthy enough  from monies generated inside the country from music  to build a night-club or recording studio. Those few who have made it financially ( like Osibisa, Amekye Dede,  Kwadwo Antwi, Daddy Lumba [45]) have done so through going abroad. The fact the no –one in Ghana has made it financially has discouraged local businessmen form investing in the countrys music business

            Indeed, in terms of music production Ghana has gone backwards forty years as in the sixties it was able to record and press its own records and  today it has only two studios for live recording[46]  and has to press CD’s abroad[47] As mentioned previously an attempt to establish an ‘appropriate technology’ cassette production industry in the mid 1980’s became a local casualty  of a global anti-piracy drive by the multi-national record companies who were switching from vinyl to CD production.       

Two live forms of popular performance still alive and kicking however, the local ‘gospel highlife’ of the churches that is not taxed and traditional/traditional music that uses local rather than imported resources. But the  government has already made moves to nationalise and internally tax folklore and they are considering taxing the churches as well  – which will of course involve its music production.

 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, will further alienate the youth from their traditional roots and will be a general cultural disaster for the country..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

F)  SOME CONCRETE PROPOSAL FOR GHANA

 

I should point out here that the following suggestion are my own. If  the discussion with the World Bank works out and Ghana is chosen as one of the six African countries to receive loans,  aid and technical assistance for its music industry,  consultations with Ghanaians operating in all areas of the industry will have to take place – and there decisions may or may not totally agree with mine

 

 

1)      TAX HOLIDAY

A minimum five year tax holiday for the Ghanaian music and entertainment industry should be considered – equivalent to the tax/duty concessions given to anyone starting up a commercial agriculture business in the country. This would encourage the re-surfacing of live popular bands, night-clubs and the sponsoring/investment of private businesses into the  artistic sector. Money lost to the Ministry if Internal Revenue would ultimately be re-covered in foreign exchange from foreign tourists and from the export of live (cf. computerised and canned) Ghanaian music on the World Music market.[48]  The  effect 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 and Brazil.[49]

 

2)      REFORMS THE COPYRIGHT SOCIETY OF  GHANA , COSGA

Different specialised collecting agencies should be  set up for the different creative areas of music, literature, photography, etc to prevent the disputes currently going on in the country. The musicians, who generate 90% of artistic royalties, should definitely have their own seperate collecting body. Incidentally, in May 2000 there were 1365 musical composers registered with COSGA

 

3)      A CLEAR SEPERATION OF THE ROLE OF THE MUSICIANS UNION AND COSGA

Although MUSIGA played a seminal role in the country’s copyright reforms it is basically a trade union that should be fighting for a minimum wage etc. Moreover, there are several other musical association in the country. So the role of MUSIGA should be clearly distinguished from that of a collecting organisation that is open to all composing musicians whether from the popular band, concert party,  gospel, art or traditional sector.

 

4)      PROBLEMS CREATED BY THE PROLIFERATION OF FM RADIO STATIONS

Since the mid 1990’s twenty or so of FM radio stations have been established in Ghana. Very few of these log their musical material and pay royalties to COSGA.[50]   Furthermore,  the local disc jockeys play recorded musical songs in their entirety so making its easy for members of the public to pirate this uninterrupted stereo  material. As a result legitimate local cassette sales has slumped dramatically. To add insult to injury the local disc jockeys do not usually mention the name of the composer, record label and producer ( or even the title)  of the work which means it is not even being promoted through radio. These discrepancies that are hurting local composers and producers alike must be corrected with government guidelines. However positive incentives should be applied and not  just government directives determining the amount of local vis-a-vis airplay to be broadcast  - as this can have very negative and contradictory results

:as in the cases of  Zambia sand Kenya some years ago[51]

 

.

5)      REMOVE PRE-PAID FOLKLORIC TAXES ON GHANAIAN ARTISTS AND PRODUCERS

Although in the light of global north-south inequalities folkloric taxes should be maintained for First World artists (such as Paul Simon) and companies that commercially use Third World folklore, this should not be applied to nationals of that Third World Country. In the case of Ghana since 1996 it is both a pre-paid tax to and prior permission from the government that has to  be obtained ( see seperate attached form). When I was a member of the Folklore board between 1991-7   I unsuccessfully suggested several alternatives[52] in which a folklore tax could be charged  retro-actively and paid by the whole artistic community so as not to penalise those very Ghanaian  artists and producers who wanted to put folklore on the market – who should be encouraged not discouraged. Two of the alternatives I suggested was for a blanket tax of no more than 3 percent to be given to the Folklore Board to do its important work from the total royalty  revenue collected by COSGA each year. Or a small extra charge should be added to the banderole (now hologram) anti-piracy stamp attached to each cassette. A similar procedure has been carried out in Zimbabwe and the Nordic countries.[53]

 

6)  CARE THAT THE   COPYRIGHT NOTION DOES NOT BACK-FIRE IN THE A THIRD WORLD

Sometimes the well intentioned introduction of copyright and private ownership of cultural property into  a developing nation can have negative effects.  The folkloric tax for Ghanaians discussed above is a case in point.  Another one discussed previously is the use of an anti-piracy ‘crusade’ in the mid 1980’s to undermine ( and actually reverse) the possibility of local Ghanaian cassette producers from legalising their position.

            Yet another Ghanaian case not previously discussed concerns the very old highlife song ‘Yaa Amponsah’ (nb. this was the song  adapted by Paul Simon)  which has been used and re-worked scores of times by Ghanaian musicians known and unknown over the last seventy years or so. Indeed it has become a standard  musical template for highlife in much the same way as the 12-bar blues has  become one for American blues, jazz and even rock.. In 1991 the Ghana Copyright Administration decided that ‘Yaa Amponsah”  was a folkloric song as it could not be conclusively  proved that the person who first recorded it for Zonophone in 1928 (Kwame Asare a.k.a. Jacob Sam)  composed both the lyrics and melody[54]

            Jacob Sam was however the first to record the song and therefore technically has some rights on the song, or rather his family has these rights as ‘Sam’ died in the 1950’s and the  50 year (now seventy years) copyright protection period after his death is still operating. Indeed, some in the music industry  want ‘Sam’s’ family to take the Folklore Board to court for claiming all of Paul Simons’s 80,000 dollar royalties so far generated by his use of it. If these  case is won then the family could then sue everyone of the scores, if not hundreds of Ghanaian musicians who have recorded or performed this song.

It would be as if a family in the United States would suddenly be able to claim rights over the twelve-bar blues

            The Ghanaian  song ‘Yaa Amponsah’  like the  African-American 12-bar blues,  has fallen into the public domain through general  public use and  what might be called a communal folklorisation process.  For one person or family to gain ownership  would create massive litigation. Obviously some sort of modality, rather than the standard copyright one,  has to be evolved that both compensates the artist and his offspring, but yet allows the general public to continue utilising this corner-stone of highlife music  freely

 

 

7)  ALTERNATIVES TO ORTHODOX COPYRIGHT

The problems that imported notions of individual copyright  can have on a society where there is  a strong surviving folkoric and folklorising   tradition is well exemplified by the above case of the ‘Yaa Amponsah’ song that stands on the borderline of copyright, folklore and the  public domain

                Yet another problem with  modern copyright is that as the law stands now its protection extends up to seventy years after the death of a composer or author – which means the work is in private hands for up to 120 years. It also means that anyone wanting to use it has to obtain prior permission from the author or his family descendents for that period of time.  In the convoluted and sometimes fractious extended family situation of  Ghana and some other developing nations  this is almost impossible to do. Moreover, in Ghana and many other developing nations the status of performer as re-creator and interpreter of works  is much higher than in the West. [55]

            Some sort of modality has to be found that will both safeguard the  author’s rights and yet allow nationals of developing country to easily utilise, re-interpret and adapt copyrighted works and pay for this without prior permission from indigenous  authors  and more contentiously their descendents. The song will be kept alive and re-cycled and everyone will gain financially. The alternative is hands off the work which will sink into obscurity.

            I might add here that any move towards  pre-paid taxes and government  permission (like present Ghanaian  folkloric tax) in  the area of public domain , as was suggested by a Ghanaian Copyright Administrator in 1995 in connection with  the local churches re-adapting old hymns (both foreign and local)  should be resisted.  Naturally it is in the bureaucratic interest of the Copyright Administration to extend its arena from copyright  to  the public domain (and folklore as discussed above) – but it is not good for the general need (especially for the youth) to re-cycle the old and traditional cultural areas of a developing nation. Indeed I  might say that this may be against the fundamental human rights of an individual vis-à-vis the state.  Just as all societies leave parks and free spaces for its citizens to enjoy so must communal t space be left within  the culture for future generations to of the nation in question to develop and even commercialize

 

8)      GHANAIAN CHURCH MUSIC

Any taxation of the local  church should not include its music 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 year tax holiday mentioned earlier, church bands and their numerous musicians[56] should be encouraged to move and 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, soul, funk and disco and rap.

 

9)      TO HELP ONE OR TWO GHANIAN MUSICIANS COLLECT OUTSTANDING ROYALTIES

One case  I can immediately propose is the case of 65 year old Mr.  A.T.A. ‘Oscarmore’ Ofori who composed numerous highlife compositions during the 1950’s sand 1960’s. Many of these are now being re-released in their original or adapted form by young Ghanaian producers in Ghana and Abroad. Due to lack of legal fees Mr. Ofori has had trouble collecting many of these ( see separate appendix for some current cases he has)

 

10)    SETS OF BAND/RECORDING EQUIPMENT FOR EDUCATIONAL/CULTURAL ORGANISATIONS

Due to the demise of live popular music  I would suggest that a grant is made available for 60 sets of popular band equipment and analogue recording equipment[57] to jump-start live  performance and recording in Ghana. Sets of these combined performing/recording equipment would go to the following. Nine ( nb. ten regions including Greater Accra) to each of the Regional National Centers for Culture, the National Theatre, The Music (or Arts) departments of the five universities, 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 and, 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-six sets to four selected secondary schools from each of the countries nine regions. Each piece of combined performing/recording equipment would cost approximately 16,000 dollars each - and so the total for 60  pieces (excluding transport)  would be approximately 960,000 dollars

 

11)    MUSIC SHOULD BE UPGRADED IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL SYLLABUS

The late 1980 the JSS ad SSS  [58]  school reform policy should be reversed in respect to music. It should be re-instated as a separate subject in Junior Secondary Schools and re-made a core subject in Senior Secondary Schools. Research in many countries has shown that music as a part of one’s education  not only enhance 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 [59] subject it did at the same time broaden the scope of music to include popular music. The introduction of the sets of instrumental/recording equipment mentioned above 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[60]   to help teach  in areas such as improvisation, composition and general live performance stagecraft.  

 

12)   MICRO- LOANS  FOR COMMERCIAL BANDS

There are numerous  live performance  bands and concert parties that have folded up to lack of equipment   and spare parts. 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 the 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  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,  going into  farming. Soft loans would be a much better alternative in all these cases.

 

13)    THE PROBLEM OF THE FOREIGN COPYING OF TRADITIONAL GHANAIAN  KENTE AND ADINKRA CLOTH DESIGNS

Some years ago the  traditional Ashanti cloth  designs (especially kente patterns) became all the rage with African-Americans  as a symbol of Afro-centrism and the design began being printed abroad. Ghana needs to collect revenues from the foreign exploitation of these design As the la w stands in Ghana traditional designs cannot be copyrighted although some moves in this direction was made by Ms Betty Mould-Iddrisu when she was head of the Copyright Administration and on the  Folklore Boards ( see separate appendix on her Modes To Protect Kente, Adinkra and Other Cultural Symbols and Designs).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ATTATCHED APPENDIX ONE

 

STATUS OF AFRO-POP OF VARIOUS AFRICAN COUNTRIES ACCORDING TO STERNS AFRICAN RECORDS UK TRADE MAGAZINE ‘TRADE WINDS’  1994  - 1996 AND THE AMERICAN AFRO POP NEWSLETTER OF JUNE 1997

 

A)     NUMBER OF ENTRIES OF SELECTED AFRICAN COUNTRIES IN MONTHLY EUROPEAN WORLD MUSIC CHARTS :   MAY 1994 TO AUGUST 1996

Senegal = 13;   Mali = 13;   South Africa = 8;   Zaire/Congo Republic = 8;  Nigeria = 5;   Benin Republic = 5;  Guinea = 2;   Zimbabwe = 2;   Ghana  = 0.

 

B)      TOP TWENTY WORLD MUSIC CHARTS 1995

Mali  = 3;  Senegal = 3;  Zaire  = 3;  Morocco (rai)  = 1;  Egypt = 2;  Cape Verde = 1.

 ( i.e. 13 out of  20 entries are African)

 

C)  GHANAIAN ENTRIES FOR THE STERNS LONDON SHOP CHARTS IS 3  C.D’s OUT OF 105 AFRICAN ENTRIES. THESE ARE AS FOLLOWS

1)       Eric Agyeman 

2)       Party Time with the Stars ( A.B.Crentsil, Pat Thomas, Jewel Ackah, Eric Agyeman, George Darko)

3)       The Lord’s Prayer by A.B.Crentsil and the Sweet Talks.

Nb  all above (except George Darko) are old time musicians who play classic highlifes of the 1970’s.

 

D)  HOT PICKS FOR JANUARY-MAY 1997 FROM THE JUNE EDITION OF AFROPOP NEWSLETTER, NEW YORK

11 out of 16 entries were from sub-Saharan African , Madagascar  = 1; Mali = =2;  Senegal = 3;  Zaire/Congo = 1;  South Africa = 1;  Morocco =1;  Algeria = 1;  Egypt = 1.. (others from  Cuba and Brazil

 

 

 

ATTATCHED APPENDIX TWO

 

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 the Ghanaian pop;  which “either mighty 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.”

 

 

ATTACHED APPENDIX THREE

 

GHANAIAN MUSIC AS A POTENTIAL RENEWABLE AND  NON-TRADITIONAL EXPORT (1991)

 

We, the undersigned musicians, have come to realise that the heavy taxes imposed on live commercial musicians is contributing to their unemployment and the decline of the live music.  This is quite unlike the situation in the local gospel music scene that has boomed over the last fifteen years or so due to the freedom from taxes the churches enjoy. So now about sixty percent of the popular music output in Ghana is from the churches

Because of the international interest since the 1980’s in ‘World Music’ commercial African music is in high demand and the fans abroad prefer the live form with real drums and real horns, rather than the computerised type.  Indeed tourists coming to Ghana often complain about the lack of live highlife performance.

The taxes on the commercial music industry that have hindered live creative performance are:

 

·         A super import duty on band instruments that are classed as luxury items.

·         A pre-paid entertainment tax (i.e. 12.5% VAT) on gate-proceeds for not only music promoters but also bands that promote their own shows.

·         Income tax on musicians and creative artists.

·         Since 1996 Ghanaian artists utilising their own folklore have had to pay a folkloric tax to the government Copyright Administration, (thus putting a disincentive on the modern re-cycling of ancestral works)

 

It is partly because of these taxes that full-sized highlife and concert bands are in decline and have been replaced by cheaper to run substitutes, such as the spinners and small recording and music groups using computers, synthesisers lip-synching and imported drumulator rhythms.

However, it is precisely highlife music played live or recorded with a natural feel that is exportable abroad to ‘World Music’ lovers and helps attract foreign tourists – both of which can attract foreign exchange for Ghana far in excess of the taxes on musicians listed above.

We are on this note appealing to the government to declare a ten-year tax holiday for Ghanaian bandsmen  to give them the tools of their trade to produce a local popular music that draws on indigenous instead of foreign resources.

This idea of a tax holiday on the local creative arts has worked elsewhere.  For instance the Canadian and Australian film industries and the Irish arts sector (dance, music and literature) all blossomed after ten years of tax liberalisation or removal, reaping huge cultural and financial rewards to these countries.  We think Ghana could follow this policy for a viable indigenous music industry, for unlike gold and diamonds, indigenous music (and the creative arts generally) is a continually renewable source of foreign exchange earnings and as such should have the tax concessions of a non-traditional export.

We believe the government should also take into consideration the problems the local music industry has faced over the last twenty-five years: the economic collapse of the country in the late 1970’s, followed by political change and three years of night-curfew from 1982.  Then, with the country’s economic recovery from the mid 1980’s heavy taxes were placed on musical equipment that helped stifle there-emergence of a dynamic live highlife music-scene – and foreign material has filled the vacuum.

 

As a result today, Ghanaian highlife is not finding a place on the international market, even though Ghana was the pioneer country for African popular music.  International ‘World Music’ lovers rather prefer the non-computerised music of Mali, Senegal, Congo and Nigeria, etc.  The current Ghanaian youth craze for local artificial computerised ‘burgher’ music is of little interest to international fans or tourists.

We 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 the next millennium, put highlife on the international map and let this country reap the financial rewards from the potential non-traditional export.