The Chief Executive Officer of Lynx Group Limited, the parent company of Lynx Entertainment, Richie Mensah, has revealed that it is insensitive for record labels to restrict their signees from exiting.
According to him, labels and artists work together on a contractual basis; hence, a musician has the right to leave when he or she feels capable of managing their affairs.
He addressed public concerns about why artists signed to his record label keep leaving, with specific reference to Eazzy, one of his longest-serving signees, who also exited.
“I never think like that because, first of all, it will be selfish to say an artist should never leave. You know, how a label and artist’s contract works is that you put somebody on; you help the person to a point, but it gets to a point, they can sort of handle things for themselves. So, they don’t need as much support as they did in the beginning. At that point, it’s now up to them if they want to keep continuing with support or they want to find their own path.”
Richie Mensah
However, he admitted that it hurts him because he often feels there is still much to be done to support the artist’s career, which he couldn’t accomplish as a manager.
Richie Mensah said he was never shocked by the departure of any of his signees, except for a particular Highlife artist, as he was the first artist to be signed to the label. “The one that surprised me the most was Asem because that was the first time it happened,” he said.
As the business matured, he realised that it was part of the business, and that artists would always come and go at any time. As a result, he readjusted and prepared himself for such occurrences.
Richie Mensah on Attacks for Choosing Music Over Medicine
The Chief Executive Officer of Lynx Group Limited recounted how people verbally attacked his mother for allowing him to choose music over medicine.
He stated that everyone expected him to further his education in the medical field after SHS. However, he chose to pursue music after discussing it with his mother, who supported his decision.
This disappointed many, and they hurled insults at his mother for agreeing to the decision, especially since he was still young at the time.
“When I started my journey, I was 17 and a lot of people said I was too young. I finished senior high and had a convo with my mum, telling her I wanted to do music, and it was a big shocker because everybody expected me to go to medical school. I had that one year between, and I said I was going to see what I could do within that time.
So, within that time, I opened the studio, and she saw what was happening, and it led to all this. But so many people insulted and told her that she was allowing her son to waste his intelligence, future, and that he was doing music. It’s not a good thing, go and do medicine and so on.”
Richie Mensah
When he released his first song, most people did not believe he would ever make progress in music or succeed on the path he had chosen.
However, after eventually achieving success, he released ‘Yaro’ to inspire others not to let anyone limit their dreams and aspirations because of their age or stature. “…so ‘Yaro’ in Hausa means small boy. So I was saying ‘they say I be Yaro but they can’t contest the Yaro’,” he said.
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