You are being cheated; educate yourselves-Epixode to young artistes

Versatile artiste, Epixode has advised young and up-coming artistes to educate themselves well in music as well as the Ghana Music Industry before they venture into doing music.

He observed that most of the artistes do not have education about music and the industry and therefore do not enjoy what they are supposed to enjoy as musicians due to ignorance.
Speaking on Atinka FM’s Drive Talk hosted by Candyman, he also noticed that some up-coming musicians sign contracts without knowing what exactly it entails and later regret signing the contracts.
“Ghana music is better than it used to be. So far so good. But there are a lot more we need to pay attention to. How the young ones are educated. Some are signing bad contracts for five years and later realise it was forever. Sometimes, when they leave a certain label they don’t have the right to even use their names and it becomes a problem to their music career,” he said.
He also stated that, “They do not know what a split-sheet is, knowing who is the co-producer, publishing, knowing what you should get as a song writer or what percentage, knowing royalties, or even money to be paid to performers. The system need to educate the younger ones.”
According to Epixode, he was exposed to these things through an international collaboration.
“They need to be educated on on the monetization of social media handles. You can stay home and make millions from digital platforms or merchandise. As a musician, you need to position yourself well in this industry such that in 20 years time your song can still fetch you money,” he said.
When asked what he would like to change about the leadership in the music industry, Epixode  said,”What i would like to change is the leaders. It is show-business but about 80 percent of the leaders are entertainers and not business people.”
He underscored the need to employ business leaders so that they can secure good deals for upcoming artistes.
“If there is a business side they can bring it on board. Even if we do not change them we should educate them. Travel and see You will know a lot.”
He added that, “Until we have a United front that the leaders should have education, we cannot change the narrative. There is no United front.”
Touching on live performances, he said,”We know we are not doing well with live performance.. I think we have only a handful of performers in Ghana. You need to add something different to your craft if someone is coming to watch you live. Costuming, stage craft and others. I waste more time to watch stage performances. The longevity of an artiste partially depends on your stage performance. We need to find our strong holds and capitalise on it.”
Meanwhile, he said his 2020 release, ‘Mene Woa’, which features Sarkodie is doing very well as expected, adding that his fans should expect a big collaboration from East Africa.
When asked if he will allow any political party to use his songs, he said that,”If you want to use it, I dont mind.”
Ghana| Atinkaonline.com| Porcia Oforiwaa Ofori