Tuesday, 05 November

Social media good but makes enjoyment of music short-lived: Pope Skinny

Entertainment
US-based Ghanaian rap star Pope Skinny

While social media has made music feel short-lived, Hiplife star Pope Skinny has observed.

“Social media has been greatly advantageous but one of the bad things about it is it cuts the enjoyment of music short,” he said.

He spoke to Nana Romeo on Accra 100.5 FM’s Ayekoo Ayekoo midmorning programme.

“People get access to stuff so easily these days,” he said. “Once you like a song, you download it onto your phone. After listening to it for a while, you get fed up.”

In the days before social media, however, he observed, “you had to tune in to the radio to hear these songs and that kept you coming back unlike today when you have the music on your phone, accessible to you all the time – once you’re fed up with it, you look for a new song to enjoy”.

Pope Skinny argued, unlike some people have opined, “it is not a matter of diminished quality” but the excess access of “the current era”.

Secondly, he noted, “because of social media, we don’t promote music how we used to anymore”.

These days, musicians expect the radio programme managers and disk jockey (DJ) to look for the songs and present them to their audiences, when “at first we brought it to the radio station”.

He intimated leaving the radio DJ to lookout for one’s music came with the risk he would miss one’s music when released, considering the overcrowded music scene and the volume of music released these days. Plus, engaging in various forms of physical promotion, as against virtual, means a musician would increase their brand awareness and be more top of mind.

“Up till now, DJs still send me pictures of CDs I presented to them back in the day,” Wo Shatta Me hitmaker noted.

Source: classfmonline.com/Prince Benjamin