Kofi Okyere Darko popularly known as KOD is has expressed displeasure over comments made by music legend, Gyedu-Blay Ambolley who accused organisers of the Vodafone Music Awards scheme of causing a decline of the highlife genre.
Speaking on how highlife music is fading out, Ambolley blamed the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards (VGMAs) for the predicament.
According to Ambolley, awarding all the prestigious awards to artistes who dabbled in different genres had sidelined highlife and questioned the criteria for selecting highlife nominees.
“It is unfortunate that people think when you sing in Twi or Fante over a Dancehall or Reggae beats it automatically makes it Highlife music. That is not true but it has become the norm over the years because these are the kinds of music VGMA rewards,” he pointed out.
Reacting to Ambolley’s claims on Facebook, media personality, KOD described his statements as “nonsense.”
KOD disagreed with Ambulley’s assertion and rather applauded the scheme for projecting Ghana consistently.
“Which awards scheme has projected our music industry like VGMA since independence?” KOD quizzed, adding that; “How many have projected our musicians beyond GH. How many have consistently done more than 10 years?”
KOD said the issue was rather the fault of radio stations who had refused to play highlife music and admonished Ambolley to rather blame them.
“When was the last time he released an album? He should be blaming some of the radio stations who don’t even play our music.
When was the last time or how often do you hear highlife on radio? VGMA cause am?” he pointed out. He said Ambolley should rather lay the blame on radio stations.
