MTN HITMAKER IS LOOSING ITS VALUE – PAAPINO

Competition in show business is an opportunity to win exposure in the public market. In music, it’s also an opportunity for an “unknown musician” known as underground artiste to be exposed and to sell their talent to the public.

Ghana is known for its one way events, to mention a few, beauty pageants, award shows and the unknown. Sorry for not continuing but there are no sustained varieties in Ghana apart from the two mentioned above.

I keep asking these questions, why does reality shows lack consistency and loses the ability to lift its winners to the limelight? What happened to Next Big Thang In Gh, TV3 Mentor, Stars of the future? Why do other countries upgrade their effort and productivity annually but we can’t protect and keep our own. Thanks to American Idols, Project Fame and America’s Got Talent.

Fast forward, innovation and creativity caught the musical scene of reality shows after the existence of TV3 Mentor, Stars of the future, Vodafone Icons, among others; I was overwhelmed and thrilled to the extent of motivating a talented colleague of mine in joining the competition because of the uniqueness and originality of the content and requirements, I mean MTN Hitmaker.

If Ghana could testify, competitions and reality shows are not doing our talents any good. Well, I still can’t find answers to this predicament. Why do competitions crowned winners fail to break through the global market after been crowned winners? Do winners really get their reward? What happened to our winners, 1st runner, 2nd runner and 3rd runner up of all the past and present reality talent shows? Apart from Jane, now known as Efya of stars of the future, Strongman and Teephlow of Next Big Thang fame, Trozo with Brukina hit and Koo Ntakra, what is happening to the rest? Is it a formula to keep you struggling and an underground?   

MTN HITMAKER got my attention after the first season in 2011 because my expectations were less to what I saw. Usually in reality shows, artiste performs already made songs of mainstream artistes and legendary but this time it was a whole new world on its own. Wow! kudos I said.

The organizers put up hard work and lifted the bars in the third season, except a few hitches of production errors but it was still great. In the 3rd and 4th season, FarmHouse Production made a step further in lifting the bars in logistics and production. Unfortunately they are no longer doing the production this season.

But wait, season 5 is doing well from auditioning time until I noticed this, contestants and young talents are singing copy write songs and competing against each other. You are about to reward them big and acknowledge them as stars. Now they get to the main world of music and are confused because they have no image of theirs. Truth is the audience will accept them in another musician shadow, so now they struggled to get accepted into the scene by trying all sorts of images and styles and at the long run fizzle out without defining themselves.

Exposure reality shows are supposed to build, direct and project an unexposed raw talent into a prepared and ready talent for the market. I think we should accept our original image and shape it than to try an already existing image. It’s my wishes that changes are made to its originality. Let’s be truthful to ourselves so we don’t kill upcoming talents.

God bless Ghana.

By Paapino