Born Emmanuel John Dankwa popularly known as Sony Achiba was one of the artistes who ruled the music scene in the early 2000s with his ‘Hip Dia’ (a fusion of Hiplife and Indian music rhythms). Unfortunately, his fame lasted for three(3) years in Ghana music industry and he’s blaming Ghanaian DJs for aborting his career.
In an interview with Showbiz, Sony Achiba said he had no wish to die out after enjoying only three years of fame but he was pushed out by the DJs.
“Ghanaian DJs kill talents. That is what most of them do. They don’t appreciate the efforts of artistes. They will even retire you before your time because they don’t know what we go through to get our music out there,” he said.
“Every mainstream artiste can appreciate the energy we put in to make our songs successful. Unfortunately, our DJs, who are supposed to help the growth of the industry would rather charge high ‘unofficial’ fees to play the song.
“As if that isn’t enough, they will be quick to retire you early from active music because they determine who should reign or not. As soon as a new artiste pops up, the older ones are left out of the competition because they think your time has passed,” he lamented.
That is not the only problem he has with Ghanaian DJs saying they do not do enough to promote Ghanaian music. He added that it sounds interesting how DJs insist on payment from local artistes before playing their music, yet would proudly play more foreign music.
“It’s quite interesting when you hear people say that Nigerians are more talented than Ghanaian artistes. I can never accept that fallacy. The truth is that, they have a bigger market and appreciate the arts so they invest in it but in our case, it’s not so.
“Mostly, the artiste has to hustle to make a meaningful career and after all that, has to compete with foreign artistes for listenership in our own country. This has been the unfortunate situation because Ghanaian DJs kill talents,” he stated.
Sony Achiba revealed in the interview that despite the fact that he has not been active in our music industry, he’s happy how far he current generation are pushing the music agenda. Thus, despite the fact that DJs have not been helpful, artistes like Sarkodie, Stonebwoy, others, have defy all odds to win international awards especially BET.