Anthony Amponsah-Opoku
Ghanaian music entrepreneur, event organiser and artiste manager, Anthony Amponsah-Opoku, has urged the government to directly invest in musicians to enable them get the needed global mileage.
According to Anthony Amponsah-Opoku, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Pakampon Enterprise, the government could recoup their investment threefold if they invest directly in musicians.
He revealed that lack of resources was the main challenge facing the Ghanaian music industry.
“I believe the government would recoup their investments more than threefold if they took up this initiative,” he said.
“More has to be done to help artistes promote themselves on the international stage. We all remember how Sarkodie’s speech at the BETs triggered massive global interest in Ghanaian music,” he said.
He however, challenged Ghanaian investors to shift their investment attention to the very promising music industry in Ghana.
He added that, despite the abundance of music talents in the country, there was a business side to music which had so far not received much attention in the country.
Anthony Amponsah-Opoku noted that if Ghanaian businessmen and organisations invest in the music industry well enough, the country could use showbiz to project its image positively in the eyes of the world.
He urged government and the leaders in the creative arts industry to design lucrative packages purposely to support up-and-coming artistes.
He also advised investors (businessmen) to see the music industry as a means of making money and generate enough profit from it, adding that investing in music would help the industry break into the highly competitive global music market.
According to him, without money, talent will remain a dream which will never materialise and if care is not taken, our industry will become a ‘funny story’ since investors are not even ready to invest in it.
He however urged Ghanaian musicians to make astute use of digital technology to reproduce digital versions of copyrighted songs inexpensively with the help of softwares and websites in other to make wealth.
He said the widespread use of digital technology in the music industry has had an impact on musicians who utilise platforms like YouTube, Vevo, and others to make sales.
“The digital space over the years has made musicians wealthy, as they make most of their money by touring and selling music on iTunes”, he said.