We didn’t lose our sound to Nigerians – Aka Blay

There has been a lot of debate in the Ghanaian music space over Nigerians ‘snatching’ the Highlife genre from Ghanaians.
According to entertainment critics in the country, Highlife music originated from Ghana but the genre has been taken over by Nigerians and is fading out in our motherland.
Highlife Legend, Aka Blay addressing this argument said, “We all have the same sounds and play music in a different way as a continent. But if you don’t concentrate on your music, you will end up saying someone has stolen you music”.
He made this profound statement on Y 107.9 FM’s ‘Dryve of Your Lyfe’ hosted by Kojo Manuel.
He furthered that just as we as Ghanaians enjoy music from Nigeria and other African countries so do they enjoy our music and learn from us.
He admitted that as a musician, he had studied music from other parts of the world and realised that most African countries have similar song rhythms.
Aka Blay believes one may mistake the rhythm of one country to be that of another because of the similarities.
He went on to advise the young crop of musicians to put more efforts into “developing our music if we want to grow as a people and export our music”.
By: Joel Sanco