Ghanaian rapper and songwriter, Enoch Nana Yaw Oduro- Agyei, known by his stage name as Trigmatic, has said that if care is not taken, the highlife music genre will become an alternative music.
Trigmatic made this assertion during an interview with an Accra based radio station, monitored by TVM (The Vaultz Media).
Explaining what alternative music is, the ‘Motromodwo’ hitmaker lamented that the highlife music, which is originally from Ghana is not being promoted as other genres of music, since it is played just once in a week.
“If we are not careful, our own songs like highlife music, in our own country will become alternative music, which shouldn’t be so. That is our indigenous sound that is our own sound. So, basically the definition of alternative music is a song that is not commercially aired… we only play higlife on Sundays especially on radio and it has become a general thing”.
Speaking on his new style of dressing, Trigmatic revealed that, it was influenced after he attended a program in Nigeria, ‘Felaboration’, where he realized that culture is very dynamic and can change at any point, so, there was the need to preserve the culture in a ‘funky’ way.
“What started this whole thing was my going to the Felaboration. It just changed everything for me. I met a few people who knew some of our legends, and we had a few conversations, and I realized that even culture preservation is very important as much as there is always change and evolution. We have to get a funky way to preserve our culture”.
It can be recalled that, Trigmatic expressed concern about how radio stations are gradually causing the music scene in Ghana to look like only four artistes are in the country, and in explaining this submission, Trigmatic lamented that most artists in Ghana are forced to follow the trend instead of sticking to what they originally started with and this makes the music aired, sound monotonous instead of having variations.
Citing himself as an example, he revealed that someone walked up to him and pleaded with him to change his style of music and do something that is trending, however he humbly declined explaining that he has consciously set an agenda for himself and therefore will not change from that.
“…We are always jumping to what is trending. You can easily tell that the patterns in the music are similar. Here for instance, we force a dancehall artist to do what is trending like the ‘Drill’, or you get the hip-hop artist to sound like Kwami Eugene or Kidi, because, that is what everybody is playing. The same kind of song I listen in show A is the same I hear in show B”.
That aside, Trigmatic who doubles as an entrepreneur opened up as to how he entered the Agriculture industry. He revealed that someone introduced him into the business and he doesn’t think he will be coming out of it anytime soon. He added that even if he no longer farms, he will still do something in agriculture since there are other alternatives apart from farming.
“Someone introduced me into Agric and I saw the commercial aspect as well. So it is not something I am getting out of anytime soon even if I am not doing farming. Agric is broad and now I can be what they call an ‘Agripreneur’”.
Read also: GHANAIANS THINK HIGHLIFE ARTISTS ARE VILLAGERS – DADA HAFCO
