Highlife musician Nero X has described as "case of laziness" on the part of his fellow highlife artistes and himself not being able to develop highlife genre further.
“Dancehall has taken over because there is no seriousness in whatever highlife artistes do…we used to enjoy highlife more but now it’s changed,” he lamented in an interview with Joy News’ MzGee.
Some decades ago, the Ghanaian music industry was characterized by some great highlife hits from highlife greats. The likes of Daddy Lumba, Amakye Dede, Ben Brako, A. B. Crentsil and Kojo Antwi.
In recent times, Kwabena Kwabena, Kwaisey Pee and Bisa Kdei all have made names for themselves with the genre highlife.
However, other genres of music – dancehall, hiplife and hiphop - have given highlife music a run for its money. Highlife is clearly not as popular as the latest genres have been in the past few years.
According to the ‘Osey’ hit star, highlife in recent times has lost its touch of quality in Ghana which has paved way for Nigeria to pick it, rebrand it and serve it back to Ghanaians.
Nero X, known in real life as Joseph Nkrumah Buabeng, added that aside laziness, lack of investors adds to the woes of the highlife industry. He also believes the industry has become monopolized.
“The industry has become kind [of] ‘one-way’. As you can see these awards always recognise the same people, but we have talents out there. Go to Takoradi and listen to their songs, better highlife songs, but no investors to push them,” he said.
The highlife musician was of the opinion that modern day highlife musicians are living on past glories.
The Takoradi-born and bred star says this is a wake up for highlife artistes to step up to be the plate, to industry players he says the time to harness new talent is now and for Ghanaians to appreciate Ghanaian music more.