Since its inception some 16 years ago, no gospel artiste has ever won the prestigious accolade at any of the 16 editions of the Ghana Music Awards (now Vodafone Ghana Music Awards) organized by Charter House. The winners have been from various genres of music but not gospel. Out of the 16 Artistes of the Year winners, three are highlife artistes (Daddy Lumba, Kojo Antwi and Ofori Amponsah), three Dancehall artistes (Samini, Stonebwoy and Shatta Wale). The rest are all hiplife artistes.
Juxtaposing this fact with the religious posturing of the Ghanaian society, the irony is very glaring. The Ghanaian society is very religious and predominantly Christian, and gospel music is huge so it is unimaginable that despite the number of gospel artistes and music released annually, they still are unable to win the coveted accolade in music in May of every year when the event is hosted.
In the absence of any recent figures on the growth of gospel music, I would borrow statistics from 2002 to show how massive the gospel music industry is/was in Ghana. According to figures released by Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGHA) in 2002, 133 new gospel artistes made entry onto the music scene. Out of the figure 71 were women. Also, between 60 to 80% of the music market share was dominated by gospel artistes. Nii Addokwei Moffatt of the Graphic Showbiz (January 13-19th, 2004) wrote that 258 gospel album were released, of which 62% sold above 5,000 copies (technically a ‘hit’ in Ghana).
Looking at the Ghana Music Awards winners list, specifically the Gospel Music category, one would readily realize that the number of winners and categories is declining. Gospel music had three categories-Gospel Artiste, Gospel Song and Gospel Album. This year, at the 2016 edition, the categories were just two out of 29 categories. Those won were gospel specific categories- Best Gospel Artiste, Best Gospel Song. This year, the category for Best Gospel Album was scrapped by the organisers based on the reason that no gospel album released boasted of at least three hit songs (basis for qualification). The decision obviously did not go down well with most gospel artistes.
The closest gospel artistes who came anywhere close to winning Artiste of the Year was the Daughters of Glorious Jesus. The group, in 2004 went head to head with hiplife group VIP for the topmost award of the night. They, however, missed out on the award to the Ahomka Wo Mu hitmakers.
Daughters picked up five awards that night-all in the gospel categories including the female vocalist category. They took home Gospel Song, Gospel Album, Gospel Artiste, Album of The Year and Best Female Vocalist. Their win made them the highest winning Gospel Artistes in the history of the (Vodafone) Ghana Music Awards. The next highest winner was Cindy Thopmson, who in 2001 picked up four awards at the back of her hit album Awurade Kasa; Gospel Song, Gospel Album, Gospel Artiste, Best Female Vocalist.
In between these periods, Esther Smith, No Tribe (2015), Christiana Love, Philippa Baafi, Selina Boateng, Gifty Osei, Joe Mettle, SP Kofi Sarpong, Nicholas Omani-Acheampong, Amy Newman, Pastor Joe Beechem, Qweci Oteng, Kweku Gyasi and Ohemaa Mercy have made huge impact with their songs within the Ghanaian music space.
The question that is often asked is that, despite the impressive showing by gospel artistes and the general religious nature of Ghanaians, why is it the case that gospel artistes find it almost difficult to win the Artiste of the Year award when they come face to face with their counterparts doing secular music. In this article, I will be teasing out possible reasons, taking into account the issue of distribution of music in this new age.
Distribution and Marketing of Music: During the golden age of gospel music (2000 to 2005), the highest grossing music in the country used to be gospel music (as pointed out above, where cassette sales used to hit 5,000 copies sale mark). One of the reasons which accounted for that was the availability of music labels and music marketing and distribution networks. These pseudo-labels had record shops across the country so it was easy to get these songs all over the country. These pseudo labels scouted churches and picked up talented singers, usually from their choirs, and with their own financial backing or help from these churches, produce and distribute their works.
This is not the case today. Most of these labels had either folded up or branched into other fields of entertainment due to the unprofitable nature of the gospel music business, measured based on album sales. These labels have now become movie production houses (Kumawood movies) which in their estimation is relatively more profitable than investment in gospel music.
Artistes who have the desire to do gospel music have to find a financier- who may not invest much in the music due to its unprofitability or go indie. And with little resources, only little can be achieved by these artistes. They resort to releasing singles rather than full albums with hit singles. Those who put out albums don’t promote it well. Also, the consistency of album releases is lacking leading to a situation where people forget these gospel artistes.
Marketability /Visibility of Artistes: For an artiste, visibility is their life wire. For many gospel artistes, their visibility does not go beyond the walls of the church or other churches and Christian oriented events like crusades, conventions. The few who are out there play just few big shows in a year compared to their secular music making counterparts. Aside that, most of these gospel artistes do not position themselves to attract sponsorship deals. In the history of gospel music, only Kweku Gyasi, Christiana Love and Ohemaa Mercy had been able to clinch deals with big corporate organizations. Those with no deals are invited to play supporting acts to big name secular headline artistes at big non- religious events.
Again, unlike their secular music counterparts, most gospel artistes are literally cautious and afraid to tap into the fan base of their non-gospel counterparts through collaborations for fear of being accused of ‘backsliding’. Those who have attempted have had their motives unjustifiably questioned by those who should know better. Sometimes, one hears the song on radio yet won’t know the artistes behind the music. They don’t have the confidence to stage their own shows like their secular counterparts. Those who attempt do it on a smaller scale, attracting a handful of people. How many Gospel Artistes can fill the Accra International Conference Centre like Sarkodie did during this Rapperholic Show? The last time an event house decided to award a gospel group for their contributions to music in general in Ghana, the organizers called it off, fearing the headline gospel group won’t pull the expected audience to the show.
Gospel Music is perceived as an exclusively ‘Christian thing’ and so those outside the Christian faith hardly accept it as theirs. The exclusivity does not help spread its appeal unlike secular songs which spread across all boundaries or labels, making it possible for everyone to accept as their own.
Radio and TV Promotions: TV and radio still remain powerful in reaching out and selling an artiste to the populace. In Ghana, radio and TV have, based on their reach and power of hypnotization, are able to turn a mundane song into a hit song. But, the challenge that confronts gospel artistes is that, most radio and TV stations play songs or screen more videos of their secular music artistes than them. Most radio programming schedules are secular music oriented except the countable gospel oriented stations. If we have about 120 radio stations in Ghana, about 90% of their music shows play more secular songs than gospel. The gospel slots are in the wee hours of the mornings and late at night; and on Sundays. The rest of the schedule is dedicated to secular or ‘worldly’ music. In effect, the average secular musician stands a chance to have his music reaching a large proportion of people in a day than a gospel musician. Is it a case of gospel acts unwilling to pay payola?
Social Media Use: The emergence of social media has bridged the gap between fans and musicians in respect of how they communicate. With just a click of a button, fans are able to track what their favourite artiste is doing. Some artistes very much versed in the use of social media can hold conversations with their fan base, share their works (songs), hype their shows and videos. They offer their fans all across the world a glimpse into their world and lives. The secular artistes are ahead on this front than their gospel counterparts.
Check the followerships/fans of secular artistes on various social media platforms-Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat- as against gospel artistes and the difference is huge. The hype that comes with Sarkodie, Shatta Wale, Stonebwoy or EL putting out a song or video is massive that the news sometimes trend for days. Examples; Sarkodie (Take It Back and Choices songs), Shatta Wale (Kaikai video) and EL (Shelele and Koko videos). One cannot say same for our gospel artistes. I’ve never seen a gospel artistes name or song trend for days on Social Media despite some having absolutely great songs. And one is left asking why this is the case since the culture of staying in the eye of the public has moved from the traditional medium (TV & Radio) to a more diverse and instant one (social media). Failure to stay smart ahead of this curve is to ones’ disadvantage. Sadly, many gospel artistes are behind the curve.
Despite the above outlined reasons as to why gospel artistes are unable to clinch the coveted Artiste of the Year accolade at the Ghana Music Awards all these years, some of these gospel artistes have pointed to other reasons that would make it difficult for them to win. It is about commercial appeal.
One of the strongest advocates of such stance is Nacy of No Tribe. In his view, the Artiste of the Year is supposed to do certain things that goes contrary to gospel or Christian values. ‘There is a sponsor for the Artistes of the Year category which is mostly nightclubs. They expect the winner to perform during the after party and you don’t expect any gospel artiste to go there and perform’.
Nacy’s opinion might be shared by many of his counterparts who feel the award scheme deliberately overlooks their hard work by not shortlisting them in the biggest category of the night let alone winning the award. It must, however be said that, until gospel artistes realize that they are in competition with these secular music making artistes and begin to learn their ways in respect of management, promotions and positioning themselves as not a gospel artistes but an artistes who does gospel music, they shall forever be overlooked when it matters during Vodafone Ghana Music Awards.