Hip life artiste Okyeame Kwame has said it is time for Ghanaians and Africans in general to create their own digital platforms which will be of ultimate benefit to their country.
Speaking as a panelist at the recently held Graphic Showbiz forum which came off at TV3’s Executive Theatre on Tuesday, June 22, the Woso hitmaker said the inability of Ghanaian content creators to fully benefit monetarily from platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram among others was enough reason to create their own platforms.
“I believe it is significant for Ghana to have its own Spotify, Amazon and other digital platforms so that when artistes create content, we can put them on our platforms and the money will stay in Ghana.
“More important is the need for the government to support us who are creating content for these platforms so that we can keep the money at the in-market economy because it takes money for me to create content and put it on Facebook.
“Because of my content, people come on Facebook and when they do, Facebook will advertise to them and take all the money and not give me and also not give the government,” he stated.
Speaking to the forum’s theme of “Maximizing the benefits of digitization in the COVID-19 era”, Okyeame Kwame said that ambition for Africans to have their own digital platforms had pushed him to start his own to be known as Trendasquare.
“I’m starting my own digital media platform for Africans to curate content. We need to let the world know that we can do our own thing. We must lower the dependence on the West so that they will respect us,” he stated.
Apart from Trendasquare, Okyeame Kwame has a streaming platform known as lalafio.com to support entertainers, which he developed with his partners Vokacom when the country went on lockdown.
The goal of the Graphic Showbiz forum was to, among other things, establish how the creative industry had been dealing with disruptions and finding innovative solutions.
In her welcome remarks, the Editor of Graphic Showbiz, Adwoa Serwaa Bonsu, pointed out how the COVID-19 pandemic had dealt a big blow to the creative industry, hence a forum on digitization was very appropriate for the times.
