Hip-life grandpapa, Reggie Rockstone has spoken on some elements of change he has noticed between the then and now of the Hip-life genre.
Comparing Hip-life back then to now, he mentioned, although there has been a bit of change, it is still the same. “The fundamentals and foundation of Hip-life have always been Hip-hop and it has always been used that way”.
In an interview on Y 107.9 FM’s weekend rush with Kokonsa Kester he said, “Right now technology has made it easier for everyone to get access to music but in our time, someone in Suhum, Koforidua or Wenchi had no access to social media to stream my music. This made it quite difficult but the passion and appreciation people had for the music was on a different level”.
Moving on he added that, things have taken a different turn as today lots of people are just using the shortcut. They just say anything, release it and they have hit songs which was not like that back in the day.
The legend believes that amidst all this, the quality will always speak for itself. “Within all of this, we still find real talents. A couple of real talents have taken it up from the time we started with the likes of Sarkodie, and all this just confirms that Hip-life is really the soundtrack of this country”, he said.
Using himself as an example, he advised upcoming artistes to take whatever they do seriously as that can be the beginning of something big. “And with that, one can choose to do music for the rest of his or her life as long as it is what you want to do”.
By: Gyamfuah Owusu-Ackom