Veteran musician, Kojo Antwi has expressed his frustrations with how Ghanaian policymakers handled Shatta Wale’s collaboration with American superstar, Beyonce.
In an interview with Accra-based Asaase Radio, he stated that the dancehall artiste’s collaboration was a great move for Ghana music and the country at large.
However, he thinks that Ghana as a country didn’t take advantage of it, the way it should have.
He believes that policymakers should have seen it as an opportunity to push more younger musicians unto the global music scene.
According to him, it is unfortunate when such international opportunities come, Ghanaians rather kill it with political differences.
“The importance of the platforms that we are given…the number of people that listen to me, number of people that listen to different artistes to combine those forces and make it into something positive. Check the Nigerian artistes, they are collaborating with top artistes from the USA but where do they get the funds from? They are trying to overtake the US entertainment scene. Beyonce’s team chose Shatta to do a Collabo … Took three songs if I’m not mistaken from GuiltyBeatz and that was a great move for Ghana not just for Shatta and GuiltyBeatz. But I think our attitude was like wait was it not Shatta who got his opportunity and made cash into his pocket…The policymakers should have seen that this is a move or the opportunity has come to find a way to push in some of the young ones so that Ghana will be there. And we keep getting these channels coming our way but sometimes we kill it with politics,” he said in a video from Asaase radio interview circulating on social media.
Shatta made a lot of headlines in 2020 after working with Beyonce and Major Lazer on their song titled, Already.
The song and its video was part of Beyonce’s musical film called Black Is King, which serves as a visual companion to the 2019 album The Lion King: The Gift, a tie-in album curated by Beyoncé for the 2019 remake of The Lion King. The film was released globally to stream on Disney+ on July 31 2020 and was aired on major media platforms across the world over the weekend.
Kojo Antwi thinks Ghana could have leverage on the platform presented to Shatta Wale, GuiltyBeatz and other Ghanaians who worked with Beyonce.
By Francis Addo