Musician, Trigmatic
Ghanaian musician and songwriter Enoch Nana Yaw Oduro- Agyei, known by his stage name as Trigmatic, says Ghanaians need music people can identify us with.
Speaking on Xzone show on tvxyz the 'nobody knows tomorrow' hitmaker said we already have a genre which is highlife. It’s not just a sound but it comes with the culture.
"I mean we already have one which is highlife Music! Highlife is not just a sound the culture comes with it as well; the name itself was adopted from a lifestyle."
Explaining the genre, he indicated that people back then lived a high life and it was picked as a genre.
‘’You know back then and they said these people lived a high life and became a genre. The ones we were able to play in the discos at the time…
Guitar music has always been a part of us… guitar bands have always been around and they will never leave ‘’.
Award-winning musician, Charles Nii Armah Mensah, popularly known as Shatta Wale, in his State of the Industry address earlier this month said, he got stunned when music agents in America asked him what genre Ghanaians can be identified with because there are too many genres being championed by artists in the Ghanaian music sphere.
However, he urges Ghanaian musicians to produce more of the Highlife music genre. It is the only music genre that can give Ghanaian artists some identity abroad. He added that highlife music has a beautiful history of being the mother genre of veteran highlife musicians such as; Agya Koo Nimo, Ampofo Adjei Snr, and Nana Tuffuor among other renowned acts.
Nevertheless, Trig indicates that he agrees with his colleague if he says we need an identity as a country. Looking at afrobeat which some Ghanaians are riding on, it was commercialized by Fela and he would forever be known for that. Jamaica is known for Reggae and dancehall music and many others.
"Of course, I will agree with him if he says we need an identity as a country and if you look at the Afrobeat no matter how we want to hold it … it’s not our sound that…yeah, we influenced it… the likes of Ebo Taylor have been a great influence on Afrobeat …the Afrobeat sounds… but it's known for Nigeria because Fela commercialized it and he’s known for that .. Soka belongs to a country and flamingo sound is for the people in Spain… If you go to different countries most often I mean Jamaica is known for reggae and dancehall Music."
"Everyone knows that yes in as much as we had our brothers who left here .. who left the shores here to the America we can always credit them for hip-hop Music because they .. they commercialized it .. umm so it's not bad if he says that because we do need an identity; we need a sound that people can identify us with and say oh.
Between you and I, we all know if you hear Nigerian song we all know and it’s not accent, it's not really because of the sound. They have a particular sound so I think there’s something we can do.. we already have," he added.
According to the songwriter, We’ve lost our identity as highlife originators because most people are trying to run away from that with the notion that, it’s for the aged.
"A lot of people were just shunning away from it because if we talk about highlife we take our minds to our fathers and old peoples' song or something but highlife music can evolve all the time," he noted.