Ghanaian music producer, Wei Ye Oteng has expressed concern about how dance challenges associated with modern songs have killed other good music which should have reigned organically.
Wei Ye Oteng lamented how great songs like Black Sherif’s ‘Kwaku The Traveller (KTT)’ and Kelvy Boy’s ‘Down Flat’ have been shoved into oblivion quickly by Kizz Daniel’s ‘Buga’ song when the three songs should have continued reigning simultaneously.
“We’re fast killing our hits. Pushing songs to trends by making all these moves and dancing for it to be a hit is killing our songs faster than allowing it organically grow to gradually become a hit. Because, the moment another person’s moves overtake yours, no matter how great your song is, trust me you’re off the table and it’s really worrying. I was expecting much higher grounds for songs like ‘DOWN FLAT’, ‘KTT’ etc, by now to be uncontrollable but instantly, some BUGA moves have taken over the trend”.
Wei Ye Oteng
Wei Ye Oteng further noted that the trend on TikTok cannot beat the organic radio and TV promotions. He noted that TikTok is a really great technology and it is here to stay; however, artists still need to reach the grounds through the traditional means. According to him, artists should balance both means to still stay on top of the trend or else die out easily.
“It’s doing more harm than good because every now and then, musicians are tempted to come up with something new when their jams are out of trend, let’s wake up before creativity becomes a competition”.
Wei Ye Oteng
Well, Wei Ye Oteng’s concerns can easily be explained, as all of this stems from the TikTok dance challenges. TikTok has flipped the script on the music industry, and everyone from artists to analysts and even marketing bosses at the top labels are hustling to catch up.
Since TikTok is mostly known for creating dance challenges, different artists are now using this platform as one of their ways to promote their new singles.
This can be through starting a dance challenge based on their song and encouraging their fans to do it as well, or by collaborating with other artists or creators. In this way, viewers can engage with their content and there is a high chance that their song will reach across different platforms and audiences as well, which is a win-win situation for both the artist and the company.
Most of the time, such songs enter charts and even top these charts but begin to drop when another viral song takes over.
Meanwhile, like Wei Ye Oteng, some people debate that the duration of the music being released nowadays is getting shorter, the quality is not the same as before, and making suitable viral hit has become a priority over how musicians release music based on their passion for it. While other newer artists are willing to do it for promotion, others are seemingly being forced into it, which then also questions the purpose of releasing a song.
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