Zumm
Dancehall artiste Zumm is not happy with how up-and-coming artistes are treated and usually tagged as ‘underground artistes’.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with NEWS-ONE, he has revealed that he doesn’t respond to people who call him an ‘underground artiste.’
According to him, this is because it is derogatory and demeaning to young artistes. Zumm believes that it is not a befitting description, and he had always had issues with people who call him by that.
“It is disrespectful to call artistes as such. We should be called up-and-coming artistes. Simple! It is not a comfortable tag. A lot of young artistes find it offensive when they are called underground artistes,” he underscored.
“We are disrespected on daily basis, you can’t imagine and it is all because we are young artistes or because we haven’t got our break yet. Sometimes you want to go on stage and want to perform your own songs that you know the audience will connect to but an event an organiser will say no. They want to dictate to you which of your songs you should perform because they call you underground artiste. It is unfortunate,” he added, while encouraging players in Ghana’s entertainment industry and the general public to refrain from disrespecting young artistes.
Zumm, born Emmanuel Agorsor, is a Nungua-based reggae dancehall artiste who has been in the Ghanaian music scene for a decade now. He is very popular in the coastal areas, especially in Accra and the Volta Region.
He was part of the music group, Best Ones, but he went solo about five years ago, and is currently under Zionite Music.
He currently has a collection of songs that he will be releasing in September 2017, in addition to his previous songs. Some of his works are ‘Dancehall King’, ‘Take Me Away’ Ft Luther, ‘Badness’, ‘Kokoni’, ‘Contract Killer’, ‘Kombo’ and ‘Touch Me Touch Nungu’.
Zumm believes that the industry has not been fair to good music.
“Most of our hits are not world standard. They are hit songs because they push under the throats of the public due to payola. The industry keeps promoting what is not supposed to be promoted. I mean songs that are not supposed to be promoted. The industry takes money from artistes and they are forced to play songs people don’t want to listen to. They force it on the people and it automatically becomes a hit,” the artiste pointed out.
“It is not fair because we are trying to go international and the world market does not do that and won’t accept our so-called hit songs. That’s why we will have one artiste getting nomination at BET Awards at a point in time while Nigeria gets like three or five artistes getting nomination every year,” he disclosed.
But, he also observed that the industry is gradually improving.
“The industry has not been fair since but right now with big guns like Shatta Wale and others as well as the emergence of Zylofon Music, GraGra Records, Zionite Music and more who are pushing to help structure the industry, I can see the industry is gradually picking up,” he concluded.