It’s time to commit to serious study of popular music – M.anifest

The issue of making the investigation of music a vital piece of the instructive framework has been of central significance to most partners in the inventive area. Couple with this, Ghanaian rapper, Kwame Ametepe Tsikata, referred to in showbiz as M.anifest has likewise approached Ghanaians to give more consideration to music instruction, especially prominent music.

Talking at the 2019 Ephraim Amu Memorial Lecture on the point “Rethinking us: the job of mainstream music in self-actualisation”, he said “it is the ideal opportunity for us to focus on the genuine investigation of well-known music,” including it ought to be viewed as the save of just the young. He identified how mainstream music has emphatically influenced society and proposed that if more centre is coordinated to it, the outcomes would be extraordinary.

He further disclosed to Citi News on the sidelines of the program his inspiration for picking the theme for the address.

“Music is important, it affects the psyche of youth and a lot of things. Today’s lecture was a challenge for academia to say we have to take the challenge for now. Not wait for 10 years, 20 years when the dynamics have changed before we try to study it. I am just being the instigator. The policymakers should take it up,” he said.

He noted that if the creative arts is taken more seriously it could translate into national development.

“The arts need to be in schools. People being creative really helps in our imagination. Our lack of imagination is really hurting us in this country. Everyday Accra floods. You see that we are not applying our imagination and creativity in every aspect of our lives and our work, and we’re suffering for it. It is not that everybody who gets involved in it is going to be artistes but everybody has artistic inclinations that need to be nurtured in whatever they do in life,” he added.

The lecture which was organised by the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences took place at their premises yesterday. Present at the programme were Prof. Joy Henrietta Mensah-Bonsu, Prof.John Collins, Professor Agyemang Badu Akorsah, Prof. Anyidoho, Ama Ata Aidoo, among others.
The Ephraim Amu Memorial Lecture was instituted in the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences through the initiative of the late Emeritus Prof. J.H. Nketia in 1999.

The maiden lecture was delivered by Prof. Nketia after which other eminent scholars most of whom were fellows of the Academy took turns to deliver lectures at different openings.
Ephraim Amu’s role in music, arts and culture is significant to the renaissance of creatives at the time because he dared to affect society with arts by tinging his works with indigenous Ghanaian culture.