Celestine Donkor has said that Nigerian gospel artiste, Nathaniel Bassey made his recent admonition to his Ghanaian counterparts out of guilt.
The ‘Agbe Boloo’ gospel singer told Kwame Dadzie on Joy FM’s Twitter Spaces that, Nathaniel passed the comment because most Nigerian artistes are given more premium in Ghana than the Ghanaian artistes.
“You receive a call for an event, there are about five Nigerian artistes on it and you know that they have paid them huge sums of money but the moment you put your cards on the table, that is the end of the conversation,” she said.
She also noted that it is difficult for Ghanaians to gain appreciable reception in Nigeria unlike the Nigerian artistes get in Ghana.
“For me I think this prophecy was inspired by guilt. It was inspired by guilt because you host a concert in somebody’s country, you put only two of their celebrated artistes on their concert. And because you are feeling guilty about the whole thing clashing with some concerts that are already going on, you prophesy that our time will come,” she noted.
According to her, Nathaniel should rather have advised the Nigerian music industry to be more receptive to Ghanaian musicians.
“I respect Nathaniel Bassey so much but I pray that he will also use the same platform like that, when he gets on the stage of Experience, when he gets on big platforms. He is a global icon. We honour and celebrate him. He should also speak that give your brothers in sister in Ghana a chance,” she said.
Her comment comes after Nathaniel had said at the Jesus Encounter Concert in Accra that Ghanaian gospel musicians should do more songs in English in order to reach wider audiences across the world.
His message has since re-ignited the debate on the role of language in song appreciation.
While some say language doesn’t matter, others hold the opinion that gospel music thrives mainly on message, a reason it is adviseable to use a language that a lot of people can understand and relate to.
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