Nigerians own Afrobeats so let's focus on highlife; we'll be copycats if we continue with it — Appietus to Ghana artistes

Renowned sound engineer and music producer, Appietus, has shared a piece of advice with Ghanaian artistes, urging them to shift their focus from competing with Nigerians in the Afrobeats genre and instead concentrate on promoting and modernising the Highlife genre.

Appietus emphasised that Afrobeats is now predominantly associated with Nigeria, with top artists like Burna Boy, Davido, Wizkid, Asake, and Temz leading the global Afrobeats scene.

He expressed the opinion that it would be challenging for Ghanaian artists to secure a spot on the global list of Afrobeats artistes, highlighting the difficulty of competing with the established Nigerian dominance in the genre.

"Nigerians now own Afrobeats, and there's nothing we can do about it. We will just be copycats if we keep on doing that.

“It's going to be difficult competing with Nigerians on Afrobeats. It is just like how you can't take Dancehall and Reggae from Jamaica," Appietus remarked.

Appietus discouraged the idea of copying or blending Afrobeats with other genres, such as Amapiano, stating that it would not yield successful results for Ghanaian artists.

He advised Ghanaian musicians to redirect their focus to Highlife, a music style deeply rooted in Ghanaian culture and history, which reflects their originality.

Appietus believes that by modernising and promoting Highlife, artistes can successfully showcase Ghana's unique musical culture without the need to compete in genres dominated by other nations.

“Let’s sell ourselves and our culture and stop competing with others over their music genres. We have sold our music type before, and Nigerians were nowhere close. So, we can do it again,” he added.

Appietus finally encouraged Ghanaian musicians to embrace Highlife as a way of expressing their unique cultural identity rather than engaging in competition within genres dominated by other countries.