Ghanaian rapper Trigmatic, born Enoch Nana Yaw Oduro-Agyei has urged artistes to value and uphold their tradition by recording more songs in local languages.
The rapper believes the music industry lacks the originality and uniqueness of the Ghanaian tradition and culture.
“I think we need to start being proud of who we are as a people. We need to encourage a lot of people to record in vernacular (local languages). There is nothing wrong and bad about it. I think it is something we need to encourage,” he said on The Day Show, Sunday September 22.
The rapper recounted his experience working with some South African artistes who he said recorded more of their songs in the South African language and still made a hit.
Reflecting on his experience in South Africa, Trigmatic said “they are very traditional. They don’t take away their originality and it is something that I learnt.”
Meanwhile, Trigmatic disagreed with the perception that recording in local languages limits the artiste from gaining global recognition.
He argued that it’s the job of the artiste’s publishers to ensure the artiste goes global.
“I disagree with that. It doesn’t necessarily take the artiste to go far. It takes his publishers and distributors to do that job and so if you have a good publisher and they want to take you so far they can, if they don’t want to or they are limited, that’s what is going to happen,” he added.
Trigmatic is known for recording most of his songs in the local language particularly, the Ga language. The rapper and songwriter entered the music scene in 2010 with his album, ‘Permanent Stains’ which had hit singles such as ‘My Life’, My Jolly’ and ‘Mefiri Ghana’ earning him the best rapper of the year award in 2011.