Campaign songs might not be seen as significant but, they do play a major role during elections. They’re mostly used as a form of endorsement for a candidate belonging to particular political party.
It is also used as a means of communication for the political parties to spread their campaign messages and build some sort of trust and solidarity between the candidate and the citizens.
In most cases, some of these songs are able to influence the decisions of the citizens whether to vote for or against the candidate that is being sang about.
All around the world, groups and solo artistes mostly compose campaign songs to either promote peace, create awareness or convince citizens of the country to vote for a particular political candidate.
In the case of Ghana, it has been no different. We have had the likes of top artistes: Daddy Lumba, Kwabena Kwabena, Shatta Wale, Mzbel just to mention a few supporting various political parties.
About a month ago, Sarkodie and Kwame Eugene released a new song entitled “Happy Day” which is said to be an endorsement song for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) a few others also have come out with this same initiative.
While most of these artistes volunteer to make these songs as a way of rendering their support to the various parties and campaign in general, others are also paid by these political parties and their candidates to come up with these songs as a form of endorsement for them. This is normally based on the kind of relationship and fan base the artiste has with the public.
In most cases, these songs sometimes end up influencing the careers of these artistes positively or also ends up taking a toll on them but in either ways it is their decision to make.
Taking all these into consideration, some artistes have concluded to never involve or affiliate themselves with any political party so as to protect their career.