GEORGE FOREST RESPONDS TO BAD STAGE PERFORMANCES AS HIS ADEPA BAND RULES ASHANTI REGION.

One of Ghana's finest bands men and sound producer George Forest has responded to an article that was published in flex newspaper about two weeks ago concerning bad artistry and stage performances we witness at music events today in Ghana showbiz.

He revealed in an exclusive interview at his residence in Kumasi when this reporter visited his camp to find out how his Adepa band was doing after the launch some months back that he will not blame most of the artistes or musicians today for their lack of knowledge in creativity on stage because a lot of these musicians did or have never played any band before and therefore lacks so many things when it comes to performing on a big stage. “I don't blame them they still have Ghanaians who will pay huge sums of money to come and watch them “model” on stage miming their songs instead of sitting in the comforts of their cars or homes listening to their CD's. Most of these artistes can't even sing the same keys on their CD's and yet you buy tickets to watch them? Sometimes I hardly understand a person who buys tickets to watch such an artistes who just mime on stage without any art or chorography, what exactly are you watching up there?” he asked.

He further noted that it will be very good to revive our high life bands back into the industry so that the up and coming ones don't suffer the same “music disease” some musicians are suffering today especially the hiplife musicians. “It is very sad we only have one good high life musicians still surviving now and that is Amakye Dede. God bless that man. You see we need people like him to on stage so we can buy tickets and watch him perform because you will get something to watch on the stage, the choreography by his bandsmen, his attitude, the keys you heard listening to his CD and everything is just superb. These are people we call musicians and this is not magic; the secret is that he has been playing band for a very long time and knows what to do on stage” he said.

According to him, back in the days you just don't call somebody a musician like people are doing today in the industry classifying people with single tracks as musician. Before one is classifying as a musician, we should know the band you've played before and your experience in music. Most of the musicians we see today in the industry are “cracked versions” of musicians. Touching on pirating on software used by sound producer, he said they are not pirating but rather the cracked version have been put on the internet by the whiteman out of pity for people to download and use since they know Africans can't purchase the original version. “I won't call it pirating, the whites only pity Africans. Music would be very costly if we should all be buying the original version besides if it is then the whole nation is pirating software's because the windows and other office software's been used in our offices today were not bought” he said.

Bringing the interview to a climax, Goerge urged all investors to invest more into live bands and also come up with new bands so we can get more musicians in the industry. Musicians who can perform to the audience satisfaction and not just “computer musicians” who comes to “model” with microphones on stage. It high time we invest into good musicians and we can only do that by reviving our high life music and bring up more bands. “I am going to launch another band very soon since my Adepa band has taken over in Kumasi now. We need more of such bands so that the industry will be very competitive and events will be worth dying to attend. We shouldn't throw our traditional rhythm and our own music away” he stated.