Wei Ye Oteng defends Ghanaian artistes ditching highlife for Afrobeats

Music producer Justice Oteng aka Wei Ye Oteng has acknowledged the importance of Ghanaian artistes identifying with Afrobeats.

He has intimated that it makes more commercial sense for highlife artistes in Ghana to brand their songs as Afrobeats than to label them as highlife.

Speaking to Kwame Dadzie on Joy FM’s Twitter Spaces programme, Oteng said although there is pride in preserving highlife which is of Ghanaian origin, the artistes are allowed to get into what will earn them recognition and revenue.

“There are more markets out there and whenever you hashtag your beat ‘Afrobeats’, because more people are searching for ‘Afrobeats’ by the day, you get a quicker market. So even if I produce a highlife beat, and I take it to a place like YouTube to sell, I’m not going to name it highlife. That is not going to be my prime objective because I know how many people are coming to search for ‘highlife’ beat. They are limited,” he said.

He reiterated that Ghanaian artistes who have joined the Afrobeats bandwagon cannot be blamed for aligning with a well-marketed movement which has gained international dominance.

According to @WeiyeOteng , it makes more commercial sense for highlife artistes to brand their songs as Afrobeats than to label them as highlife. #JoyEntertainment pic.twitter.com/uwQY14Y7dp

— Kwame Dadzie (@Kwamedadziegh) April 6, 2023
Oteng made this submission when he joined a panel comprising ace highlife musician Rex Omar, singer Abiana and broadcaster Austine Woode on ‘Joy Entertainment Unpacked’ for a discussion on what to do to preserve Ghana’s highlife genre.

He is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Drumline Studios. He has worked with artistes such as Obrafour, Trigmatic, Barima Sidney, among others. He also produced four tracks on Rocky Dawuni’s Grammy-nominated ‘Voice of Bunbon Vol 1’ album.