Did He or Did He Not-The Appietus Saga?

Hey blogsville!!!Happy New Year!

So if you guys remember I did a piece[http://asantewarrior.blogspot.com/2010/12/i-borrowed-it-but-forgot-to-tell-you.html] on sampling sometime around December 14th last year. It was about a Cabo Snoop song titled "Windeck" and a track by Zigi from Lynx Entertainment titled "You sey wey tin". I'm not against sampling. Sampling as I said earlier, it is an essential part of the music industry today. A lot of people sample worldwide, the issue is whether the originators of the song are being given credit for the work. If they aren't, then it becomes a big problem. Even the likes of Jay-Z and Kanye West have sampled beats and phrases from different artistes. But none of them have stolen virtually the entire song and tried to pass it off as their own making.

So did Appietus steal/sample the song for 5five's "Move Back"? The way I see it I'd say they did.
After listening to to this track by DJ CNDO released sometime in 2009

and that of 5five can you honestly say that Appietus didn't steal the instrumental?

When asked about this, He said "there is nothing wrong with sampling other musical works" and yes he's totally right about that. There is a possibility that somewhere in this wonderful place we call earth someone is also sampling Appietus's instrumentals.

I think he should just admit and be honest that he stole the beat, and was counting on the fact that most Ghanaians aren't open-minded enough to listen to diverse music from other countries or different genres unless its from Yankee(USA) or from Nigeria.

If we conduct a survey to find out the number of Ghanaians who listen to foreign music excluding those from the USA or Nigeria I have a feeling the pie-chart would be very disappointing.

Back to the topic. Appietus played it very smart when he said "What is stealing if you give credit? The boys have not even released their album, so that one can conclude that they have failed to acknowledge the source of the sampled beat, he urged, advising people should wait for the album before they start talking."

Obviously since he was unlucky and he got caught he's going to now give credit to DJ Cndo. What if he wasn't caught, would he have given DJ Cndo credit or would he have passed the beat off as his own? We all know the answer to that.

People we need to be more creative because we as a people lack that alot.

I Borrowed It but forgot to tell you

Music changes year after year. Sometimes it takes a turn we all don't approve of and most times we just love it and follow it even if whatever is being said in the song is silly or inspiring.
Sampling is an essential part of music today. Like Kanye West All falls down, was sampled from Lauryn Hill's mystery of iniquity. The same with The Alan Parsons Project , Ammonia avenue in his song Heartless. Jay-z also sampled Andrea Mcardle's Hard knock life in his album Life and times of Sean Carter Vol.2 Ghetto anthem. We have our V.I.P borrowing from Mario and Luigi in the ever classic Mario brothers in their song Lumbe Lumbe. So i guess its something we cant do without. But my problem is are the originators of these sampled songs getting any credit.

So i came across a song earlier on in the year,really great song.



Now its the end of the year and a similar song just popped up. Hmmm!!!



So the question is who borrowed from who and forgot to tell the other?

Relevance 1

Dont you hate it when you hear something or you've been told about something great, fun , interesting whatever only just to be disappointed. Yea disappointed coz you dont see the connection to whatever you've heard to what you've seen. It really bugs me, why ? coz u raise my expectation only to crush it.

Asem came out with a song Pigaro and Gh went all WOW!!! It was something new, one could say a bit refreshing from the super mario instrumental type songs we've been hearing. So there was some talk about a video that was gonna blow our minds only to find out Pigaro 1-5 was just another video with no concept. If pigaro is a dance, what type of dance is it?

Couple of years down the line and Gh Self-proclaimed Diva Eazzy drops Wengeze!!
OMG!!! chale chale!!! Banging track kraah..This trackz got all da dem girls shaking something. I'm like this one dier itz gotta have a Sick Ass video..



WTF!! x2 Aaaah not again.. the video comes out only to find eazzy doing borborrbor, dressed up like Terry Bon-chaka. Talk abt disappointment paaah. Watz with da wengeze. chale catch ma eye small erh.. The only interesting/cool thing abt the video is the silhouette. chale on point.

Thinking all the crappy ass songs/videos are over, I stumble across a track from Praye recently "New Dance" aka "Getoge" The song is talking abt doing a new dance.. hold ur waist with ur two hands and do the dance..WTF!! after listening to the track expectation level like 4.



Yep and I was right. Ok video but what happened to the new dance. Replayed the song like 5 times trying to figure out which part of the video da New dance featured in. SMH!!

Only in Ghana!!!

Ghana Music Awards 2010 (An Award Show Or A Variety Show)

This was written before the GMA's took place. I didn't want to post it but upon reading
http://www.mightyafrican.blogspot.com today I just thought it would be a good idea to put it up.

Another year is upon us and once again, we welcome the Ghana Music Award’s (GMA). I should be excited but unfortunately I’m one off the few Ghanaian's who are not too happy about the GMA. I don’t want to get into the awards in details about how I feel about it. That will be expressed after the show. Let’s just focus on the main event and forget about the side shows.

Let me work my way to what I believe a boring GMA 2010 by starting with GMA 2009.
Celebrating 10years of exceptional Ghanaian music if I am right. First of all the Mc’s dragged the show for far too long. How can you have a show with such boring Mc’s please one year of Samini was enough but to give him two that’s just plain torture. Sorry to say but who in God’s name asked Obour to be an Mc? Question: Was there a shortage of people who could do the job? Was Obour the only person they could pick? Geez?

With GMA 2010 it’s said, that if we want to find out who the MC is or are, we would have to come to the show to find out. Honestly tell me people, would you want to waste 50GHC to find out that, the MC for the GMA is another Obour type person. I guess that would be a waste of money. No offense Obour.

What the heck was DJ Black doing? Isn’t he supposed to be the “BEST” dj in GH? If so I ask again what the HECK happened to him at the award show. Playing the wrong tunes at the wrong time or should I say right time. How can you be introducing someone to the stage that’s Ghanaian and you are playing foreign type songs. Where is the respect for the Ghanaian Artist who have supposedly composed good tunes and Dj Black is busy playing Foreign type tunes to introduce Ghanaian people. Even introducing the guest artiste wouldn’t it be appropriate to play and instrumental if their tune but instead we get Western type of music being played.

Sorry Mr. Tumtum but I guess GMA 2010; you should hang up your Head set for another Dj to try something different. So we can judge the vast variety of Dj’s we have in Ghana.

I have to point out one thing about the actual award show even though I said I was not going to talk about it. But writing this has got me thinking about that particular award “Hip hop Song of the Year”.
I had no knowledge of the fact that we actually had a genre in Ghana called Hip-hop, if I am not mistaken the “Godfather” of hiplife merged Hip-hop and our unique African tune Highlife to make it hiplife.

I really find it amazing, amusing and at the same time Entertaining when we have guest artiste coming to grace the GMA. One thing I have noticed over the years is the lack of appreciation on the part of we the audience and the Ghanaian population in general towards these guests. If my memory serves me right we’ve been honored with the presence of Blu3 from Uganda, D’banj, Wande Coal, Ikechukwu and Naeto C from Nigeria, Ja-rule from USA etc. What have we done to show our appreciation, nothing I suppose. Taking you back a couple of years when Blu3 were in Ghana, crowd response ZERO. Moving forward to about two years ago Ja-rule in Ghana crowd response semi-impressive. Going back to just last year D’banj and his Mo-hit squad doing their thing and the crowd response is appalling. Seriously the only song that the crowd responded to that day was falling in love by D’banj. Seriously are we Ghanaians not enlightened about music and I’m not talking of just music in Ghana but in Africa and the world also. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw little or no affection for our guest artiste till they heard a song they knew. What happened to sensitization of other music from across the globe especially Africa. The funny thing is after the music awards about six to eight months down the line everyone is so into D’banj and Wande Coal. If I was to put a wager and asked anyone what D’banj’s first album was I’m sure I would leave with my money.


Bringing you back to GMA 2010 I have no doubt that crowd would definitely go wild wanting to listen Wande Coal and Doneo, but how many songs will they perform that’s my Question ? I guess maybe Wande might do Bumper to Bumper for the crowd but what about the other songs on his album. If he is allowed to do two songs will the crowd be able to sing along. Same goes for Doneo with his hit “Party Hard” what about songs like ‘Ten Ten’ from Wande Coal or ‘be mine’ from Doneo etc. New to the Ghanaian scene is South African Group Jozi. What feeling will they leave Ghana with since it will be their first time performing in the country? How is the crowd going to respond to them? I doubt there has been any air play of their songs. If there has what impact has it made on the Ghanaian people. I think they are going to be shock when they find out that the crowd are watching them like something is wrong somewhere.

Enough said about my feelings towards the Ghana Music Awards. If I say anymore I would probably sound like a Nagging wife or a broken record. Lets see how things Unfold. I promise I will bring you a comparison off last year’s awards and this years when everything is over and done with.

NB: any grammar errors blame it on the........?

Their Life, Your Life

After what i experienced a month, ago i think i have to re-evaluate the way i see things and ease up on a lot of stuff. OK here goes..... I took a trip... a month ago, to go say whats up to ma peoples in the 9 part of town(Volta Region). so i know conditions are not really good in these rural areas... but not this bad. I mean seriously people in the urban areas compared to them are living luxurious lives and we are taking so many things for granted.We got there on Sunday 1st of February 2009, the first thing that was on my mind was a nice hot bath and comfortable bed and a socket to plug my laptop and by some stroke of luck a really nice *chop bar(local restaurant) so i fill up my stomach. Thinking like a city kid(child).

So we get to the guest house and i am like ooh ok this is not bad i can live here for 5 days.
So i ask my supervisor whether that's the place we are going to stay and she says yes..... but that's the housing for the females and the male housing is a little further down. So we get there and I'm like huh!! they always say don't judge a book by its cover but when i entered the room i realized this book can be judged by its cover... Chale the ceiling was just the Zingli(aluminium roofing sheets) there were no sockets in the room and the fan blew heat instead of a cool breeze. ooh yea before i forget there wasn't a W.C but a shweetom(pit latrine). So i tell myself if i ever wanna use the bathroom i will definitely go and use the one at the girls side and not guys. Do you know how many kids would consider this as a punishment.(boy are we spoiled).

So i set up all my stuff still disappointed about not being able to use my laptop or have a nice hot bath, but then i decide to take a walk and survey the whole area to find out what i am working with. I kinda realized all the housing in the area, well not all but most of the housings in the area were made out of mud. Seriously i counted the number of brick houses in the area and i being honest and not exaggerating it wont be more than 10 trust me.(seriously its a sharp contrast) So Monday comes and we start with the work we have to do, going round taking co-ordinates and asking question so we get to this old man and this dude asks for 30gp(22 us cents) and says he's gonna take some shots(alcohol: whisky, vodka etc) with it.... so i ask myself what kinda shots is this dude gonna take coz, in Accra i definitely know that 30gp(22 us cents) will either get you a shot of alomo(local drink) herbafrique or even no shots at all...I doubt you could even get a bottle of Coca Cola.so i start to think when me and my boys go out to drink we spend more than 40ghc total at a bar. I mean not only me and my boys. Which bar or pub have u been to in Accra that has 30gp(22 us cents) worth of shots.....lets see Twist....Purple pub.....Celsbridge....HoneyS...Champs....Uncle Jerry's(East-Legon)...the list goes on and on.. If you find any let me know coz i wanna reduce cost when i step out.

You know how we always complain about how when we go out its one way(the same thing)....kinda like its always a drink up or like we are going to celsbridge or a club or something.. The people in the rural areas live a totally different lives. From what i saw and what i think, i might be wrong but i believe there's a lot of monotony and also they sleep extremely early. Some people might think i am being patronizing... but i am just trying to compare living situations and it seems like we take things for granted in the urban areas.

M.A.M.A

Whoa!!!!! itz abt tyme that Mtv Awards come to Africa....The land of Music and creativity, rythms.. Do you want me to go on.... Even though i wasn't able to go to 9ja... I got to see the re-run on Tv3, big ups to them for showing it to those who couldn't be there in person to witness the first Mtv Africa Music Awards show....

If any of you got a glimpse of what I saw 2nytes ago, you must be thinking..... was the show really held in 9ja.... the stage was perfect...... from lighting, to stage design.....was just swell... I mean no amount of words can describe the creativity and perfection... involved in what i saw.... For a second I actually thought i was watching your regular Mtv award show probably from Ceasar's palace or something... LOL!!!!!! Big Ups to 9ja again... proving to the world that Africa has a lot to offer in the entertainment industry...

I was really impressed with the way the awards were presented to the winners..... The award itself looks really "Posh" Thumbs up to D'banj....NaetoC, Ikechukwu......HHP.....JOZI....ASA.....Cassette....Samini.....Wahu...Seether....Goldfish. all those who were nominated in the first ever Mtv Africa Music Award... It really proves they are actually doing something in the music industry.... They are all winners in my book....

"WHATZ UP WITH SAMINI"

"Ghanaian artist Samini revealed he was not happy the live award had gone to a "group that plays CDs and mimes".He added: "If you say 'live' then the music has to be with a band."I'm not picking names but I think that the best live performer should go to a live band artist."I'm sorry if I'm being harsh here but I'm trying to be straightforward. If I watch you on TV and I see you with a live band, then you better do it on stage for me." from BBC.

Honestly is this guy for real....why is he complaining....there was no way he was going to win the award... Dude should go check up the defn. for live performance.... it doesnt necessarily have to be with a band..Its also abt being able to perform on stage and move a crowd....I think the winner of award, did deserve it. I should think he being nominated is credit enough of his good work and thus he should step up his game... and maybe in the near future he will pick up an award.. He should stop his childish whining...

All in all I think the show was a success.... and Ghana Music Awards should learn alot
from M.A.M.A...... Big Ups once again 9ja