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| Lord Paper |
From primary school, I was taught that culture is the way of life of a group of people and it is expressed through the food they eat, the way they dress, their dancing styles and other things they do which is peculiar to them. In Ghana, this is revered and every parent and family does its best to inculcate in the next generation, the roots of their culture.
However, the edge to become famous and relevant in our growing society seem to overshadow the regard for culture and the true fabric of the Ghanaian. Some weeks ago, Ghanaians woke up to racy pictures from Shatta Michy and instead of her Shatta Wale to condemn it, he rather said the more people talk, the more he will release hot pictures of his baby mama.
Like that was not ok, on Thursday this week, Ghana woke up to a “revolution” in music videos. Yes, I call it a revolution because it is the first of its kind since I started following music as a young man. An upcoming artiste, Lord Paper, “blew” our minds with a music video that will go down into our history books.
This video saw social media go agog with some section of users thinking Lord Paper was a hero and others thinking he has disregarded the culture that brought him up, that culture which frowns on nudity and upholds good moral standards.
I concur with the latter section not because I am a moralist but because I still believe in the culture that brought us up. I have always mentioned that I believe that culture is dynamic but when disregard replaces dynamism it becomes a great deal of problems.
In other cultures, this music video would have been tagged as dope because they accept nudity but in Ghana, we respect the “kata wo ho sei” and therefore will not praise myopia.
Lord Paper in his quest to sell his music to the world and the Ghanaian populace, shot a pornographic film in the name of a music video.
For an artiste, he had produced a host of songs which didn’t do well and in his quest to hit the limelight, all he could think of was to do something exceptionally different which will get him trending and relevant?
So with all the creative ideas in the world, what Lord Paper could think of to make him relevant in the music industry was to insult Ghanaians? Lord Paper took Ghanaians for granted and thought we do not “think far” so we will fall for his mediocre of a music video. He insulted the fabric of our society to satisfy his selfish desire of becoming an influential figure in the music industry.
But truth is, although his name is on the lips of many Ghanaians, he failed to accomplish the ultimate goal of pushing his music to the people. No one is interested in the music he put out there and that is a worry for an upcoming act.
Some artistes thrive on controversies but that does not work for all people. You, as an artiste cannot insult the intelligence of the same people you intend to entertain and expect to thrive in an industry which is fast growing.
Respect Ghanaians and you will be respected, disregard Ghanaians and you surely will see your career go down faster than gravity.
