Dancehall icon Stonebwoy has added his voice to calls for uniqueness in Ghanaian Dancehall and Reggae music.
According to him, though what Ghanaian Dancehall musicians are doing now is pure Jamaican Dancehall, it will make sense to add a little bit of Ghanaian flavour to make it unique.
He was commenting on a recent statement from ace saxophonist, composer and rapper Gyedy Blay Ambolley that Ghanaian Dancehall artistes should do well to get a unique identity that would differentiate them from their Jamaican counterparts.
“We do Jamaican Dancehall and Reggae in Ghana a lot, so if we are doing Dancehall and Reggae, I don’t know how else you want it to sound differently from the regular Dancehall and Reggae music we have. But I believe that picking a point from what Ambolley said, inculcating our cultural stuff from Ghana into our Reggae and Dancehall music is an intelligent argument because you can hear me fuse Twi or Ewe in most of the songs that I do; that is trying to inculcate the Ghanaian element into them,” Stonebwoy, currently in Italy, told NEWS-ONE in a telephone interview.
He also stated that Ambolley, a veteran Ghanaian musician is apt in expressing his opinion on music.
“He may also have a reason for saying that. He cannot come out and say anything anyhow because I think he is an elderly person and an elderly musician in Ghana who also can add his opinion when certain things are going on about music.
“Leaving the highlife and hiplife genres, where he belongs, to make a comment about Reggae and Dancehall, I believe that it may not be all perfect or all true. He may have his reasons,” Stonebwoy added.
His statement conforms with what Ambolley called for: “The musicians, who are in that line of music, take more of their beats that come from Jamaica and add their voices to them. I think we need to have an identity. If our brothers from Jamaica who have created that form of music come down here and we are doing the same thing like them, it doesn’t really sit down with me. We need to add some part of our cultural aspect to the style that we’re using in the Reggae and Dancehall music.”
Stonebwoy got nominated in five categories – Dancehall Artiste of the Year, Artiste of the Year, Dancehall Song of the Year, Best Collaboration of the Year and Best Performer of the Year – for the 2014 BASS Awards.
He commended the organizers of the awards for focusing on awarding and rewarding artistes in the Reggae and Dancehall genres.
“For the primary idea of awarding Reggae and Dancehall artiste across Africa and Ghana, it is good because at the end of the day, it focuses on those particular genres to reward or award artistes, who contribute to Reggae and Dancehall in Ghana,” he said.
