Mutala Mohammed felt he will let us know how he feel about the dancehall king, Shatta Wale. Read his unedited mail below.
……We were all there. We do not need the analyses of some event commentators who have no understanding of the Philosophy of Arts or its history thereof to tell us what happened at the stadium last week Sunday. These analysts lack the basic understanding of stage craft and its symptomatic relation to the audience. Once you perform live, you are the best. Once you are lifted from a forklift, you failed.
Once you pronounce a swear word “suck your mother” you lost on the day. They claim Shatta Wale did not have any act on stage. I need education here…What was Samini’s act or Ackon’s act? They should tell us? What they forgot to analyze was the fact that, Samini lacked the courage to even perform on that day. Samini had to sing four or five songs before he could relate to the crowd. This is unlike Samini. Again Samini admitted to the crowd that he knows he has jilted them for some time now but it was because he was busy doing other things; all in an attempt to lure the crowd to his side but all to no avail. They also failed to elaborate on the booing as though it was nothing to be booed on stage. Hell no! The worse of all was when he (Samini) requested a minute of silence to the memory of Ronny Couches of Buk Bak fame; the crowd booed him to register their project. This is because they saw the gesture as hypocritical and an attempt to sway them to his side. Also the crowd is aware of the fact that Samini has once Dissed Ronny and of cause we all know the dirty slap at the Glenns night club. After singing his Jama songs stroke hip-life cum highlife combined, Sammi told the crowd and I quote “This is not Dance Hall Music; this is Ghanaian music”. This is a tacit admission that, he reckons he does not do Dance Hall. But who said we came there to listen some genre of music? ‘A’ Dance Hall mi sey!
Performing live is not an end to itself. The Be –all of performing live is to move your crowd. You are encouraged to perform live not to move some biased journalist or event commentators? Artistes are enjoined to perform Live because their songs on CD’s are artificial. So they are suppose to make it come alive when we they mount the stage. By making it come alive, we mean move the crowd. In all honesty with all the hostility, Samini moved the crowd to some extent. So did EL and Ackon even Whizkid. The truth is that, the crowd forgets that, Samini use to be their darling boy some time back with some hit songs like “diwu lane mu and where my baby dey”. So they jump to the music once it start to play but coil quickly as it progresses…lol. (Ganja and Guiness at work). My point is simply this, when they say artistes should perform Live, it is not for the sake of just “Live”; it’s to make their song come alive on stage in order to move the crowd or please them. So if someone performs Live and was not able to move the crowd, how do you come to the conclusion that, he warn? However if the other artiste mimed but moved the crowd, he rather won the day albeit putting the two together makes both of them better artistes. In any case, how did you come the conclusion that, somebody won if both Artiste did something else? Show us the criteria lets critic it. To expose their analysis more, they agreed on a whole that Ackon put up the best performance. Meanwhile Ackon did not perform Live. He did exactly what Shatta Wale did. So tell us the criteria!!!
I have observed this craze by the Ghanaian paparazzi to insist artiste perform Live without commensurate Live recording. It is a good thing to perform Live but they must know that, music recorded in studios and played many times on the airwaves is difficult to perform Live. It doesn’t go for me when I attend shows. I love it when the CD plays and the musician sing along; just don’t mime. Again the media must also know that, the entertainment industry evolves like in every other nation. This is Science! Go read Karl Marks and you will know how societies evolve from one stage to the other. I am not propounding anything new. If you reckon this fact, you will not be making too much farce about performing Live as though it was a virtue. We are growing and we will get there. You expect Shatta Wale to have a standing BAND over night?
This biased premise and conclusion is the offspring of envy and hatred for artistes with ghetto characteristics. Even Samini suffered same when he started. This so called “music industry” or no, “music players” labeled him with all sorts of names even to the extent of disqualifying one his greatest hit song ‘Linda ‘from their market driving awards. ‘Di wu lane mu’ was also on their lips as having the tendencies to destroy the youth because of the element of the Ganja and Booze.
This phenomenon is worldwide. Anytime the industry is taken by surprise by some new work of art, they fight it because it’s not their creation. Check history and you will find out what I am saying. Go and read Professor Collins’ notes on Ghanaian music and you will see that from the Adaha Music to E.T Mensah’s HighLife, from E.T to George Darko’s Boga HighLife, George Darko to Reggie Rockstone’s Hip-Life; all these transition were fraught with challenges. This curse is the problem of the media against Dance Hall and its Artistes currently. Even in Great Britain, prior to the emergence of Shakespeare, the Playwrights at the time wrote in Latin. Shakespeare chose to write in English. The system first mocked him. Indeed the greatest writer at the time Ben Johnson said the following to mock Shakespeare “who is this upstart, who think can shake the spear like some of us” (paraphrase), thus using Shakespeare’s own name to mock him. I am not sure if any of the commentators know this Ben Johnson I am talking about but I know they all know Shakespeare. They can critic, oh no, they can comment for all we care; history will not write their names. The songs and life of Shatta Wale will remain forever and ever. SM4LYF!!!
One ludicrous argument I have heard is the fact that, Bandana used some swear words and hence one of the reason why he lost on that day. Hogwash! If you claim you understand music and entertainment, then you should know every stage comes with its peculiar characteristics. The History of dance Hall is full of swearwords. You cannot do Dance Hall without some swear words or some real ghetto happenings or sayings. It’s the culture of Dance Hall. One thing that irked me more was when one ‘music player’ said he left the stadium because Shatta Wale said “suck your mother” how? If you don’t know something you don’t brag as though you know it all. Had this gentleman waited some 48 hours, he would have been schooled by his eminence the Dance Hall King,a.k.a Shatta Wale of the meaning of that. In any case what kept him in the stadium when Big Sean also profess similar swear words? Shear hatred!!! When Shatta says some of you are illiterate, he means you don’t know how to read and write “Patua”. Suck your mother means in Dance Hall terms “you are child or behaving like a child hence go and suck your mother’s breast and grow up”. What is wrong with that? The point I am trying to make here is that, Dance Hall has a culture, if we as Ghanaians don’t like it, let say so and stop this PHD syndrome. I don’t blame this ‘music players and event commentators’, I blame George Quaye, who is my senior at the school of performing Arts. Instead of bringing professionals to speak on issues, he brings friends and his mafia clique to come converse on “The pundit”. All the people you bring on your show have no background in the Arts. All they say is “it’s my opinion”. Who wants your biased opinion? We want an expert opinion.
The attitude of the media towards Shatta Wale will amount to nothing. They should continue to write all sorts of nasty things against Shatta Wale at the top. We will be at the bottom to listen to him. They can do all the ignorant and wrong criticism of Shatta Wale, not even a single Fan of Shatta Wale in Nima, Newtown, Ashama, Mamobi, Shukura, Zongo, Chorkor, Korle-Gonno and Dome will stop supporting him. We were listening to him before you started playing his song and we will continue to support him long after you stop playing his trucks. (We still got the title so we na worry…Shatta Wale). Shatta Wale is a self made. The music industry even if it exists did not make him. He made it through hard work. I have seen Bandana perform in ghettoes for free. He did that out of respect for them. As one of the organizers of fresher’s night at the School Performing Arts several years ago, Bandana rocks the stage 3 hours non-stop for free. How do you expect us to leave such a character? In a nutshell I want to say Bandana toiled and worked hard reach his current status. PHD wont do anything to Shatta Wale. SM4LYF!!!
Samini is a worldwide name and I LOVE HIM. GOD KNOWS I LOVE HIM but Samini is not a Dance Hall Artiste. Samini like Atumpan and Screwface use dance hall style on a hip-life beat and Ghanaians love them for that. Sammy B, General Marcus blaze the trail of Dance hall music and today it is Artiste like SHATTA WALE, Stonebouy, Jupiter, I wan et all, who are doing real dance hall. If Samini wants to do dance hall, let him do it. He should stop these Jama and hip-life beats in the name of hit and do Dance Hall. So far as I am concern, the battle of who is the dance hall king is not between Shatta Wale and Samini. It is between Shatta Wale and Stonebuoy or any of the artistes mention above. Talking of battle, the scores are clear for everybody to see. It is Ghana vrs Egypt in Kumasi; I mean 6-1 in favour of Shatta Wale. If Samini is real, let him reply those letters? ‘A’ WALE RUN THINGS!!!
MURTALA MOHAMMED