Rocky Dawuni, a three-time candidate for a Grammy Award, defended his colleagues by stating that he did not view the O2 Arena’s capacity in the UK as a metric for determining an artist’s success.
His remarks follow the Nigerian artist Asake’s capacity-filling performance at the O2 Arena, which sparked discussions over why Ghanaian singers weren’t able to accomplish the same.
Rocky Dawuni told Graphic Showbiz that just because Ghanaian performers aren’t packing the O2 Arena doesn’t mean they aren’t succeeding.
“We are doing so well as musicians in other areas and I don’t think it is right to use O2 Arena which is in just one country to judge how good our musicians are.
“It is not even proper to compare our musicians to our Nigerians brothers because we are unique in our own way. Nigerians have the support and the investment and if we get same, filling that place will not be a big deal”, he said.
According to Rocky Dawuni, Ghanaian musicians have mounted some of the biggest stages across the world and doing so well out there.
“I can tell you for a fact that our music is the best. It is rich. We should build on our strength. We should focus on building our music industry and make sure our artistes who play on such big platforms project the positive image of our country. I don’t think filling the O2 is something we should worry our head about”, he added
He goes on to explain that a Ghanaian musician can fill the O2 “because we have the quality of musicians who can do that so I don’t want us to spend time on this. We have so much to talk about with our music than filling a place which is a venue in one country,”
said he.
Rocky Dawuni, who has been in the music business for more than 20 years, has been nominated for a Grammy Award three times. He became the first candidate from Ghana when the ‘Branches of The Same Tree’ CD was nominated for Best Reggae CD at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards in December 2015.
