{"id":5962,"date":"2019-08-23T07:30:26","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T07:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=5962"},"modified":"2019-10-26T18:17:53","modified_gmt":"2019-10-26T18:17:53","slug":"i-wont-stop-fighting-for-whats-right-akosua-adjepong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2019\/08\/23\/i-wont-stop-fighting-for-whats-right-akosua-adjepong\/","title":{"rendered":"I won\u2019t stop fighting for what\u2019s right \u2014 Akosua Adjepong"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

FOR years, Highlife artiste, Akosua Adjepong has been campaigning for better conditions for musicians when it comes to royalties and while that may have made her unpopular in some quarters and even attracted threats to her life, she tells Graphic Showbiz she won\u2019t stop fighting.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Akosua Adjepong who was at the Graphic Showbi<\/strong>z offices on Monday, August 18 said although it may seem she had gone quiet lately, she was still fighting for musicians to get what was due them.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo I haven\u2019t stopped, I am still on it and I\u2019ve had issues, especially recently when I received threats when someone wrote on my wall, \u2018I will kill Akosua Adjepong.\u2019 I am still talking about it because I am growing and all my kids are into music so if we don\u2019t get the right thing done, it will always continue,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Akosua and a number of musicians have been up in arms against successive administrations of the Ghana Music Rights Organisation (GHAMRO) over what they say is corruption and low royalties they receive.<\/p>\n

For her, poor leadership is one major reason musicians are not getting what is due them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have the right leaders leading us and that is one of the biggest problems. GHAMRO receives a lot of money not only from the government but the telcos, TV and radio stations and even the \u2018spinners\u2019 at events, yet, our musicians are dying poor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of rot at GHAMRO; when Rex Omar first assumed office, the first thing I alerted him to was receipts; at a point, there were five different receipts for royalties collection and I told him to speak with the spinners because they were given different receipts but I don\u2019t think he took that into consideration because if he did, he would have realised there was something dubious going on.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some GHAMRO officials who go round collecting royalties and after charging, they take penalties, some of which are written on pieces of paper. How? Some receipts cannot be accounted for. After the recent audit by the Auditor General\u2019s Department, about 176 receipts couldn\u2019t be accounted for. Why were they quiet about this?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe minute you talk about it, you become the enemy but I am not going to stop till the right thing is done. I will continue to talk about it till everything comes back to normal,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Next year, Akosua Adjepong will be celebrating 30 years in the music industry and although she has enjoyed success, she told the Graphic Showbiz<\/strong> it\u2019s been very tough.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been very tough and I always cite how our old ones die not out of old age but out of sickness and poverty. It is sad and I will keep saying lack of good leadership is the reason, the governments have for years not considered what musicians and actors go through with piracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just in 2012 that the government decided to give money from the recordable things that people import and they called it the blank levy. Apart from TV and radio stations, as well as telcos, even Google pay in dollars but our musicians are dying poor. This saddens my heart and I can say that it has not been a smooth journey,\u201d she revealed.<\/p>\n

Even though it hasn\u2019t been smooth sailing, Akosua Adjepong said it had been worth it somewhat because doors of opportunity were opened for her by virtue of who she is.<\/p>\n

On Friday, August 30, Akosua Adjepong will be honoured by the Oak Plaza Hotel in Accra at its Dinner with the Stars<\/strong> event, which the hotel uses to celebrate musicians who have immensely impacted the Ghanaian music industry and she expressed her happiness at the gesture.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, I want to give thumbs up to Oak Plaza for thinking about legends like us. If I am not mistaken, Oak Plaza is the first hotel that has really taken upon itself to honour legends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means they have seen what some of us have actually done for mother Ghana and for them to go all out for us is great,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She disclosed that she was planning something special for patrons and encouraged people to patronise the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have surprises as you always know for people that will be there. They know what Akosua Adjepong does and this time, they are going to see new things. I don\u2019t want to blow my own horn but the audience will judge,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

source:graphic showbiz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FOR years, Highlife artiste, Akosua Adjepong has been campaigning for better conditions for musicians when it comes to royalties and while that may have made her unpopular in some quarters and even attracted threats to her life, she tells Graphic Showbiz she won\u2019t stop fighting. Akosua Adjepong who was at the Graphic Showbiz offices on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":5963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[4553,9951,424,5522,11554,140,1384,10505,9309,10131,192,12071,4521,6070,2264,12138,12005,7236,9974,5612,5058,11973,8874,10917,9021,9431,2753,9859,9030,8629,6348,3954,594],"class_list":["post-5962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-accra","tag-age","tag-akosua-agyapong","tag-arms","tag-audit","tag-auditor-general","tag-corruption","tag-die","tag-dollars","tag-ghamro","tag-ghana","tag-ghana-music","tag-ghanaian","tag-google","tag-government","tag-import","tag-judge","tag-kids","tag-leadership","tag-money","tag-music","tag-one","tag-penalties","tag-poor","tag-poor-leadership","tag-poverty","tag-rex-omar","tag-royalties","tag-success","tag-telcos","tag-us","tag-will","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}