|
|
Of Energy Crisis and Business
Relocation
Samuel Dowuona
I was walking with my friends somewhere in Forestgate in
East London, UK and guess who I run into? Appeatus! Ghana’s
number one Studio Engineer! His rise to fame came with the
advent of the Western Highlife quartet, Ofori Amponsah, Kofi
Nti, K. K. Fosu and Baroski.
Appeatus is a studio engineer extraordinaire who I’m told is
sometimes paid extra just to put his signature “Appeatus in
the mix” in people’s music! This is to make the music a hit!
There is no doubt that Appeatus has carved a niche for
himself on the Ghanaian music industry and perhaps beyond.
Nearly every song which bears his signature is a hit!
One may ask what the on-going
energy crisis has got to do with Appeatus, what he does and
how much money he generates into the economy. My answer is
simple. Everything!
When I met Appeatus at Forestgate, I was happy for him
because I thought he had landed a contract in London with
some heavyweight international artiste, but my mood changed
when he told me that he had relocated his work to London due
to the energy crisis in Ghana!
Obviously no serious country
would be naïve enough to deliberately give away such a
valuable human asset to another country, but unfortunately
that is what the poor management of our hydro-electric
resources and its resultant crisis facing us now
have brought us.
In Ghana music today, everything Appeatus is considered good
and an automatic hit! Now he
resides in the UK.
Appeatus
pointed to a nearby studio called Kalah Music Studios on
Romford Road, about 100 meters from where we were standing,
and told me that from now on that is where he would be
operating.
Before he left, I am told that at
every point in time Appeatus has hundreds of songs and beats
in his studio computer that he is working on for tens of
artistes. His excellence has commanded high profile artistes
like Daddy Lumba, Nana Acheampong, Josh Laryea and other
greats in the industry.Talk of award winning artistes like
Ofori Amponsah, Praye, Wutah, Obrafuor, Kofi B and many
others. They have all come through the Appeatus mix to reach
where they are now .In fact between last year and this year,
songs and artistes recorded by Appeatus have swept almost
all the top awards in the Ghana Music Awards.
It goes without saying that with the kind of musicians
Appeatus works with, and the number of projects he works on
at any point in time, he no doubt generates lots of revenue
for the country.
For instance in a particular year one of his regular
artistes I am told, generated at least 600 million cedis. In
recent time another one of his works generated over 800
million cedis.
Now, that is a lot of money, considering that he works with
10s of such high yielding artistes, you can understand how
much money his works generates for the economy. Think of how
many jobs his works provide for people.
I left the country at a time when the power rationing
exercise had changed to 12 hours off every three days from
12 hours off every five days, which was better, so my first
question to Apeatus was why – is the energy crisis that bad?
His answer was that the power rationing has worsened and it
is destroying his job.
Appeatus said he works with some of the most expensive
studio equipment one can find on the market, and he tells me
that with the worsened power rationing exercise is not only
damaging his studio equipment but also making it difficult
for his artistes to meet deadlines messing up painstakingly
recorded tracks.
I guess what he was trying to tell me was that he is a
business man and the power crisis was destroying his
business, wasting his time, his clients time and gradually
running his business to a halt.
As a businessman he had to reason up fast and relocate to
enable him recoup his to complete all unfinished jobs before
he loses them all. Moreover he has to save his equipment
from further damage.
His decision is very understandable; I and anybody else for
that matter would have done same. In fact just before I left
Accra for London I witnessed the hustle one music group went
through at a music studio at Osu in Accra just to put
together five songs for their tour of the UK. The energy
crisis simply prevented them from laying their vocal tracks
within the deadline.
Now, that is the kind of
challenge Appeatus faces with his clients.
Until the energy crisis is fixed the country has lost
Appeatus and the jobs he provides for his staff members who
cannot move with him to London. It also means that all of
Appeatus clients in Ghana would now have to make extra
expenses and travel to London if they want Appeatus to work
for them. One can only imagine how many more Appeatuses have
left the country due to energy crisis.
Samuel Dowouna, London, May 11, Ghanadot
|
