Entertainment entrepreneur, Nana Yaw Wiredu aka Nana Yaw 18, has lamented Ghana’s neglect of hiplife, a genre he believes once had the potential to position the country at the forefront of global music.
Speaking on Channel One TV’s The Chat programme on Saturday, July 12, 2025, Nana Yaw 18 contrasted Ghana’s misstep with Nigeria’s success in promoting Afrobeats.
He pointed out that while genres like heavy metal, funk, and electronic music maintain a global presence at events like the Grammys through sustained support, hiplife in Ghana has been abandoned and allowed to fade.
“When you go to the Grammys, you’ll see categories like heavy metal, funk, and electronic music, and you’ll wonder if people still even do those genres. But they’re there because they’ve been sustained. That’s what Ghana failed to do with hiplife,” he said.
He also criticised the industry’s failure to honour its pioneers, adding that such internal disputes have fractured unity.
“We killed our own genre because some people felt Reggie Rockstone didn’t deserve to own hiplife, or Zapp Mallet didn’t have a stake in it. That mindset hurt us,” he said
Mocking remarks by critics from neighbouring countries, he added: “Anytime our Nigerian brothers want to laugh at us, they remind us that we had hiplife, but we failed to sustain it”.
Nana Yaw 18 urged the Ghanaian music industry to shift its strategy to embrace and evolve its heritage genres instead of solely chasing global trends.
Only then, he believes, can Ghana reclaim its cultural and musical legacy on the world stage.
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