Renowned Ghanaian record producer Julian Nicco-Annan popularly known as Juls has reiterated the need for Ghanaian artistes to embrace their traditional roots in music as he highlighted the lack of unique sound in the current music space.
In a recent interview on Y 107.9 FM’s Myd Morning Radio Show with host, Rev Erskine the award-winning producer, spoke candidly about the current state of the music industry in Ghana.
Juls, who has produced hit songs for some of Ghana’s biggest artists such as Sarkodie and Stonebwoy, expressed his concern over the lack of a unique sound that can be pushed in the industry. He believes that puts other countries like Nigeria ahead.
“Right now we don’t have a sound that we are pushing like significantly. We’ve had phases of Azonto and like we killed that. Even HipLife and the sound and everything involved because we’re looking too much into the other side of things like Hip Hop, Trap music and all of these things,” Juls said.
Juls went on to explain that the problem with the Ghanaian music industry is that artistes are too focused on emulating Western sounds, rather than creating a sound that is uniquely Ghanaian, particularly “Highlife” music.
“It’s very difficult but for me I just feel like it’s just words and photographs. I mean like Highlife topping in the 60s and 70s and it always has people like…yea lemme listen to this sound,” Juls said.
Juls emphasized the importance of paying attention to the instrumentation of music, particularly the use of traditional Ghanaian instruments, which he believes can create a unique and authentic sound.
“The instrument and how they were arranged back in the day, there were so many tongs and samples and vibes contained from it. You can create them properly and you don’t even have to modify them so much. You can literally just rap in them,” Juls said.
Juls further encouraged Ghanaian artistes to be more experimental with their sound and to focus on creating a unique identity for Ghanaian music, ultimately amplifying Highlife music from Ghana.
By: Jude Tackie
