THE GHANAIAN DANCEHALL DILEMMA

When Charter House released the nominee list for the just-ended TGMAs 27, one of the most talked about categories was the Best Reggae-Dancehall Artist category, which most people online felt lacked credibility and didn’t reflect the true state of the Reggae-Dancehall genre in the country. Personally, I also felt that the organizers and board were almost deliberately ignoring the hardwork a lot of the artistes had put in during the year under review, and had specifically curated that nominee list to make sure there was almost no competition for the eventual winner. This is only a personal opinion. However, it got me thinking about how much the awards scheme had contributed to the diminishing impact of the genre on the overall Ghanaian music scene. This is the reason for this write-up.

The first time I heard the word “dancehall” used to describe a Ghanaian song was Kaakie’s “Too Much”. This was in the year 2011. Before that, every time I heard the word, it was suffixed to a word that held much weight for me: reggae. Reggae-Dancehall. That’s what they always called it. Reggae to me was conscious, almost religious music. My grand-uncle, “I tell you”, had a bar right behind my grandma’s house, and we would wake up every day to the sound of reggae. It was always the first thing he played in the morning. The only time this ritual changed slightly was on Sundays, when he would swap the reggae for gospel. I guess that, subconsciously, I was programmed to rate reggae music as highly as I rated gospel. But it wasn’t just that. The content of the songs also contributed to this view. Songs like Alpha Blondy’s “Jerusalem”, Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”, Lucky Dube’s “House of Exile”, Buju Banton’s “Destiny”, and Culture’s “Slice of Mount Zion”, while I didn’t fully understand what they meant at the time, would come to define my worldview and open my mind to some essential truths of life.

So, to grow up and discover this new sub-genre of music that was so undoubtedly vulgar and offensive, being referred to as a child of the conscious genre that I knew reggae to be, was jarring, to say the least. And don’t get me wrong, I had heard songs like Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff”, Marlon Asher’s “Ganja Farmer”, and Busy Signal’s “Sweet Love” & “One More Night”, which were songs about sex, weed, and violence, and yet I was still shocked by the graphic imagery in the songs of this new genre. But I would come to later discover that this new genre wasn’t that new after all, and that some of my favourite hits and artists from my childhood had indeed been dancehall.

Being the curious student of the game that I am, I took a deep dive and discovered that Ghanaian dancehall music wasn’t as vulgar as its Jamaican counterpart. In fact, ours was so much more palatable in that sense, but that is not the point of this write-up. That deserves its own write-up. I learnt that dancehall music had been producing hits in Ghana since as far back as 2004, when Samini, then called Batman, dropped his legendary song “Linda”. I also learnt that Bandana, now Shatta Wale’s “Moko Hoo”, was a Ghanaian dancehall classic. The deeper I dived into history, the more interesting facts I found. I learnt that Ghanaian dancehall went even further, tracing its roots from a certain Yogi Doggy in the 90s to General Marcus, Root Eye (who I had been watching on TV3’s Music Music practically all my young life), Sonni Balli, and Mad Fish. I learnt just how little of our music history was properly documented. And I even learnt that the late Terry Bonchaka, before his untimely demise in 2003, was a Ghanaian dancehall powerhouse and arguably Ghanaian dancehall’s first star. It was eye-opening, to say the least.

After the success of Too Much in 2011, dancehall saw an explosion into the Ghanaian mainstream over the next decade. Stars like Stonebwoy, Shatta Wale, Iwan, and Jupitar wasted no time in dropping some good music and making a name for themselves. The women were not to be left out, as Kaakie, MzVee & Ebony Reigns cannot be left out of the Ghanaian dancehall conversation. Between 2012 & 2017, it seemed to me like every new artist that emerged onto mainstream media was either in hip-hop or dancehall. Names like Vybrant Faya, Epixode, Ras Kuku, Rudebwoy Ranking, Ak Songstress, and Shatta Rako, just to mention a few, were all part of this dancehall explosion. 

However, two artists would emerge above all the others & assert their undeniable dominance over the genre during that decade: Stonebwoy & Shatta Wale. These two would turn out to be the most polarising figures in Ghanaian dancehall and Ghanaian music history in general. They managed, through no fault of theirs, to divide the music industry and the streets alike into two rival factions: Stonebwoy’s BHIM Nation & Shatta Wale’s Shatta Movement. This was Ghana’s own version of the Gaza vs. Gully beef. This rivalry would come to a boiling point in 2019 at the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards, during Stonebwoy’s acceptance speech for best reggae dancehall artist of the year, an incident whose details every Ghanaian music fan is aware of, so I’ll spare you the story.

The effect of this decade-long beef, however, was that all of the Ghanaian music fans’ attention was drawn to these two. In fact, the genre became about these two artists. Even fellow dancehall artists chose a side, which I completely understand. That’s dancehall culture. The problem this created, however, was that it now made it difficult for any new dancehall artist to gain any recognition in the mainstream. I began to notice a trend: the same names would show up on the best reggae dancehall artist nominations at the VGMAs year after year. On the radio, you’d barely hear any new dancehall artists’ music. Even some of the more popular established dancehall artists weren’t getting as much airplay with their dancehall songs, and some of them had already begun to pivot into other genres to increase their visibility. One name that successfully broke this trend was Larusso. He dropped hit after hit and got continuous airplay, but even his momentum slowed a little after parting ways with his label, despite consistent drops. Other new artists like Genna (fka Phronesis), Jah Lead, Kahpun (who has honestly been around for a while), Gunny Boy & J.Derobie all struggle to get mainstream attention despite their consistent music releases & the efforts of platforms dedicated to promoting dancehall music, like Yardie Sessions.

Now this is my hypothesis: mainstream Ghanaian media has been so captivated by Ghanaian dancehall’s two heavyweights that it no longer cares for any other new artists, especially as these two show no signs of slowing down any time soon. Now I have made this argument privately online and offline, and counterarguments have been made that dancehall has never had overwhelming mainstream media support, considering that the genre itself isn’t naturally radio-friendly, given the vulgarity and offensiveness in its lyrics. It has been argued that these two heavyweights rose to fame by conquering the streets first, each claiming and asserting dominance in their respective hoods: Ashaiman for Stonebwoy & Korle Gonno/Nima for Shatta Wale, something these new-age dancehall artists have overlooked or at least failed to do on the same level as these two did. So what do you think, dear reader? Is the stagnation of the genre the fault of the artist or the system?

Article by Kojo Bonsamposuro