Legendary Ghanaian highlife artiste, Rex Omar, has disclosed that only a few Ghanaian musicians make money from music.
Based on some research he conducted a while back, the music legend found out only 5% of people pursuing music in Ghana are making some kind of money or can be said to be gainfully employed.
“Most of them are doing it with passion hoping that something will happen. Until today, most of the people pursing music are not approaching it as business and as soon as you start to approach it as business, then you start to ask questions like if it is viable especially doing music full time in Ghana.” He said this in an interview with Kokonsa Kester on Y107.9FM’s Weekend Rush.
He emphasized that because most musicians do not ask questions, they don’t know whether or not doing music is viable, and the requisite capital needed to invest into their crafts. Because most musicians lack this knowledge as purported by Rex Omar, they are unable to make projection into the short term, middle term and long term.
“If your break-even point is 5 years, you need to know how much to invest in it to be able to break even. And if the answers and numbers are not tallying then it is not viable,” he mentioned.
He emphasize the fact that a lot of musicians who have really made a name for themselves in the industry can have only the name but in most cases, it does not reflect in their finances.
He believes this is because music is driven by passion alone and for people who do not know this and are not very careful, will only continue to follow the passion, gain the big name, grow old and have nothing to show for the music they made.
“Unfortunately, this very society will start to lambast you that you didn’t live a profitable and fulfilling life. They will say you spent all you had on women. When the whole situation is that Ghana is a small market and we have very few independent record labels that has the requisite capital and knowledge to even break artistes,” he said.
He added that although it is a difficult situation, the young who are passionate about music do not want to heed to such pieces of advice.
“If you’re not careful, some people who are already in the music industry thinking and hoping they will make it will also pounce on you because of the passion they have but, if you put emotions aside and look at it with the business approach, you’ll realize that very few musicians are making money off music,” he highlighted.
By: Gyamfuah Owusu-Ackom
