MUDAG President Warns Musicians

The President of the Musicians and Dancers Association of Ghana (MUDAG), George William Dickson, has sent a word of caution to players within the Ghana music industry who are engaged in bitter rivalry with one another to learn from the bitter rivalry that transpired between Lesane Parish Crooks Tupac Shakur known on stage as 2PAC and Christopher George Latore Wallace popularly known as Notorious B.I.G within the American music industry back in the 90s which led to the untimely deaths of the two. Speaking at a press conference at MUDAG offices near Hatampa Hotel in Agona-Swedru on Tuesday, May 27, 2014, Mr Dickson said, �We need to learn from the kind of mafia gangs that sparked off the east and west coast bloody and deadly wars in American music industry which led to the untimely deaths of many promising music stars.� He continued� �Not only that, for anyone to have presumed it had no serious repercussion on the American economy and security in the states where those wars were much concentrated would have made a grief mistake. Anything of that nature occurring in our beloved nation will leave us with much to desire and bitter lesson to learn from. We have to do anything possible collectively as we have the power and opportunity now in doing so before things get out of hand.� According to him, �Music was never intended to destroy, cause disunity and/or segregation within a society but rather, build, unify and gather our collective gifting and talents through music and the arts for the total development, progress and prosperity of all the players involved as well as society and the entire world as a whole.� However, the Ghanaian music industry sadly continues to gain notoriety for undue rivalries amongst its artistes which recently led to the killing of Fennec Okyere. Meanwhile, Mr Dickson has urged Ghanaian musicians to begin to cooperate and support the Ghana Music Rights Organisation (GHAMRO) in the execution of its mandated tasks to enable it to perform effectively. �Though GHAMRO may have its short comings with the Carlos Sakyi-led administration which is of course common in all human institutions, they must be encouraged to do better and at least complement their effort at being able to disburse what they received,� MUDAG president stressed. According to him, though it was not wrong for musicians to demand accountability from Carlos Sakyi on how his administration was disbursing monies it collects on their (musicians) behalf, they must as well try to do some justice to the entire music industry by making Bice Osei Kuffuor, president of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), to account for monies he as well accordingly received on their behalf.