Despite teething problems that confront the music industry, it is progressively making headway with solutions being found here and there to it.

An instance or proof of this that encouragement and motivation supposed to be watch-words to help play key role in assisting to sustain players on the music landscape, to protect their property rights and legacies is being effected.

To this end, the Sunshine Arts and Music Awards (SAMA) is coming out again with a 35 category music awards programme at the renovated National Theatre on Saturday, December 9, 2006 after a chequered functional life.

According to Prince Afotey Laryea a.k.a Humble lion, Public Relations Officer of SAMA, in line with authencity and originality in the promotion of our beautiful cultural music, connotative categories, like Kente, Edikanfo, Quarewa, Damba, Seprewa, Gome, Kpanlogo and of course high life will be highlighted during the awards ceremony, adding that this could help resurrect our musical cultural values which he said has been ‘buried’ and sidelined either as a sabotage and is made to suffer as a result of influx of foreign music or material and has been made to belong to the limbo of the past.

To arrest this anomalous situation as he put it and to make the irreversible reversible, SAMA has put things together in a package and mapped out strategies in areas of our cultural music to redefine our cultural identity and values and salvage this lost identity from the limbo of neglect.

Old and new faces in our music industry as welcome artists to local and foreign audiences will surface. They will include Eddie Quansah a celebrated trumper of defunct African Rhythmaires Band, good old Jerry Hansen, sax player and leader of Ramblers Dance Band International back home after a long sojourn in the US. Others are Dr. K. Gyan and his noble kings, Asabea Coper etc.

The Humble Lion in another way put it like this, “My heart bleeds blood when I see musicians especially the young ones feeding fat on the sabotaged works of artists or as a result of indirect piracy to collect awards’, he grinned.

He said if Paul Simon could have come here to buy artists right to the tune of $100,000 to procure rights of Yaa Amponsah rendition, then why should we bother ourselves to congest our industry with foreign musical culture.

He said it is because our music or cultural values is very rich and not only unique but authentic adding that Ghana musicians should hold fast to our cultural music and honour creativity.
He said through one’s cultural values, one’s identity could be determined.

Okyeame Bediako, President of SAMA said his outfit has time and again been sabotaged, because sponsors who were supposed to give them sponsorship were told not to give it and cited an example in the year 2000 when 1000 children supposed to have been used for dinner dance on that occasion had to be redirected for another use to avoid loss.

Again he said in the year 2005, a planned sabotage was directed against his outfit, accusing him for having allegedly said hiplife was satanic. Arts he said sparked off confusion and unleashed an uncontrollable anger and vehemence on him.

However, the air was cleared by his PRO with the explanation that it was an advice he gave to the youth in hiplife to learn how to use musical instruments and also to avoid profanity because Satan had diverse ways to cause anarchy and destroy what it gives in the music industry.

He said King Ayisobe, a Gonji Mayer, the native guitarist is a good specimen of promoting our musical culture and expect hopefully 9th the 2006 music awards would be a success.