Entertainment legend voices out disappointment in foreign artiste’s performance
The Legendary Koollife James Kolawole, founder of Koollife Entertainment, in an exclusive interview with The Point Newspaper, voiced out his frustration with certain foreign artistes who come to The Gambia to headline shows.
Koollife, a multi-talented instrumentalist, Music Producer, and a filmmaker, boldly stated that the Gambian Entertainment Industry should take stern and reasonable steps forward in 2016 to ensure that the trend of inviting foreign artistes who do not have the people’s interest at heart but only care about making money, is brought to an end.
“We have famous artistes from Nigeria, Jamaica, Sierra Leone and Senegal who have visited The Gambia so many times. It is about time The Gambia woke up and took up the challenge,” Koollife said.
“Most of the guest musicians who have been coming haven’t contributed anything to the nation at all. Many Gambians have been disappointed in some of the foreign and Nigerian artistes’ performances. They don’t seem to be able to perform when it comes to live shows, and in my opinion Flavour is the best Nigerian artiste who delivers well on stage.”
Mr Koollife went further to say that “Many Gambians get disappointed because the voice and stage performance of most Nigerian artistes is different from what they hear on CDs and see on videos, but there is nothing we can do as long as the show has been paid for.
He then talked about the cost of inviting foreign artistes to The Gambia and the cost of forming collaborations with the local Gambian artistes.
“All these guest musicians come and go without collaborating with any Gambian musician because they are paid to stage performances not to help to promote Gambian Music. Gambian artistes will need to pay for the collaboration separately.
“For example if you want a Nigerian famous musician to collaborate with a Gambia musician the minimum amount is 300 hundred thousand dalasis, and the Gambian artiste must fly to Nigeria to do all the mixing or invite the Nigerian artiste to The Gambia’s best studio and this will cost the Gambian artist more by paying to host the Nigerian Artist. To bring Famous Nigerian musicians the minimum cost is 1.5 million dalasi; Davido charges almost 3 million dalasi in total.
“If the ‘King of Kora’ Jaliba Kuyateh’s launching could be a huge victory then The Gambia is going higher this 2016, and this is a good Step for the youths of this nation do believe in themselves.
Mr Koollife then boldly declared that there is a more cost effective and profitable way forward that would benefit both the Gambian artiste and the Gambian populace.
“Our promoters can afford to bring a foreign artiste and can also profit from it, but those promoters can make three times of the profit if Gambia starts appreciating its own music and vibes.
“Let’s imagine if 500,000 Gambians buy a Gambia DVD or CD for 50 dalasi only, we make 25 million dalasis and if 50,000 Gambians buy a ticket to a show/event for just 100 dalasi only we make 5 million dalasis a night. This monies stay in circulation in the Gambian economy and is not taken away by foreign artistes.”
He then said the reason why tourists love this nation is because of the stability and security of this nation, and it is prospects for Gambia’s artiste and actors to do entertainment that will attract tourists and investors to believe more in this nation and on Gambia Entertainment industry.
He concluded in this interview by calling on Gambians to show more support to the Gambian entertainment industry. “My suggestion is Gambians must wake up as we need to love and support Gambian entertainment. It’s time for Gambian musicians to love one another and stop beefing each other, lets us all write good lyrics and fight this together. It’s time Gambians used Gambians’ music as their ringing tune and caller tune; it is time for the Gambian business owner to use Gambian music on their advertisement and play Gambian musician in their offices and shows.
“And for Gambian DJs and FM owners, they should play Gambian music. All this must take place for the Gambian entertainment industry to take reasonable steps forward in 2016.”
“You can join us to help build Gambia entertainment industry @ www.gambianmusicians.com; facebook.com/gambianmusicians.”
