Ghanaian Artist, Emmanuel Kofi, popularly known as Kwaw Kese has stated that he has never received any royalties in his 20 years in the music business.
The rapper took to Twitter to lament the state of the music business in the country, revealing how difficult it is for musicians to get their music out there as sole financiers of their crafts.
“20 years of doing music in Ghana and never got paid any royalties. You rather have to pay Djs to play your music, pay tv to show your videos , bloggers to blog your content and press media to give you press. How can you survive this industry by financing all these by urself ?” he tweeted Thursday, December, 15.
In a follow-up tweet, the Madtime Entertainment founder compared doing music in his home country to “elsewhere,” where his “friend produced one song for a musician and has made over 2 million dollars,” out of that single endeavor.
“Down here, you only get paid with insults and disrespect,” he bemoaned. “Release a song today and tomorrow they’ll be asking when are you releasing a new song?”
Kwaw Kese adds that the situation is the same for his colleagues in the industry and has left the bulk of them “broke.”
“I bet a lot of our musicians are not getting paid but social media pressure, they will smile on social media and cry at home. More are broke,” he added.
