Record labels are important —Baba Sadiq

While some Ghanaian musicians have down-played the relevance of record labels in the scheme of operations, founder of 3Media Networks Limited, organisers of 3Music Awards, Baba Abdulai Sadiq strongly thinks otherwise.

He believes it will be very difficult for a musician to be successful without a record label.

His reaction is in response to Highlife artiste Bisa Kdei’s revelation he has had to turn down many international record labels since he is better off without them.

In a recent interview with entertainment journalist, Kwame Dadzie, Bisa Kdei explained  he turned down offers from international record labels because he didn’t want to lose his music catalogue.

 “I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve had offers but I turned them down because I don’t want to give my catalogue away. It’s very important as a musician that you keep that. That’s why I said it’s best to be an independent artiste” he said.

Though Bisa Kdei’s position may be valid to some extent, Baba Sadiq thinks record labels play important roles in a musician’s career in so many ways.

“For example, Black Sherif can easily get influencers like DJ Khaled and other international musicians to hype his songs because he is signed onto Empire, a label based in the USA.

“Empire can get him international shows and get his music anywhere because they have the connections which Black Sherif on his own would not be able to do”, he added.

According to him, it is virtually impossible for a musician to get to the highest height without the professional guidance of record labels.

“It is either the artiste has his own record label or gets an external one to do the work for him. Simply put, the artiste cannot do it all by himself. You need someone to do publicity for you, get you gigs, upload your songs among other things”, he stated.

Touching on other matters, Sadiq said it is about time some popular musicians moved from analogue to digital.

“Now digital is everything but it is unfortunate some musicians are still stuck to the analogue way of doing their things. They can employ the services of other people to upload their songs on different digital platforms and monitor the returns as well”, he said.

Talking about why a musician like Black Sherif will get all the buzz around him compared to some of the old musicians, Sadiq said it is because majority of Ghanaians who listen and consume music are within his age bracket.

“The majority of Ghanaians who consume music are between the ages of 13 and 24, so they will probably see him as their hero but see these legends as old school,” he added.