The issue of making the study of music an integral part of the educational system has been of paramount importance to most stakeholders in the creative sector.
In tandem with this, Ghanaian rapper, Kwame Ametepe Tsikata, known in showbiz as M.anifest has also called on Ghanaians to pay more attention to music education, particularly popular music.
Speaking at the 2019 Ephraim Amu Memorial Lecture on the topic “Re-imagining us: the role of popular music in self-actualisation”, he said “it is time for us to commit to the serious study of popular music,” adding it should be regarded as the preserve of only the youth.
[contextly_sidebar id=”jViduzHBWhMzaMR2UvDN1jJL0dyQZvv7″]He enumerated how popular music has positively affected society and suggested that if more focus is directed to it, the results would be great.
He further explained to Citi News on the sidelines of the programme his motivation for choosing the topic for the lecture.
“Music is important, it affects the psyche of youth and a lot of things. Today’s lecture was a challenge for academia to say we have to take the challenge for now. Not wait for 10 years, 20 years when the dynamics have changed before we try to study it. I am just being the instigator. The policy makers should take it up,” he said.
He noted that if the creative arts is taken more seriously it could translate into national development.
“The arts need to be in schools. People being creative really helps in our imagination. Our lack of imagination is really hurting us in this country. Everyday Accra floods. You see that we are not applying our imagination and creativity in every aspect of our lives and our work, and we’re suffering for it.
It is not that everybody who gets involved in it is going to be artistes but everybody has artistic inclinations that need to be nurtured in whatever they do in life,” he added.
The lecture which was organised by the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences took place at their premises yesterday.
Present at the programme were Prof. Joy Henrietta Mensah-Bonsu, Prof.John Collins, Professor Agyemang Badu Akorsah, Prof. Anyidoho, Ama Ata Aidoo, among others.
The Ephraim Amu Memorial Lecture was instituted in the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences through the initiative of the late Emeritus Prof. J.H. Nketia in 1999.
The maiden lecture was delivered by Prof. Nketia after which other eminent scholars most of whom were fellows of the Academy took turns to deliver lectures at different openings.
Ephraim Amu’s role in music, arts and culture is significant to the renaissance of creatives at the time because he dared to affect society with arts by tinging his works with indigenous Ghanaian culture.
