Corporate Ghana unfriendly to Gospel acts – Quame Gaby

Gospel artistes seem to be sidelined not only when it comes to awards but also by the corporate world.

While secular artistes are landing lucrative deals as the faces of brands, Gospel artistes are yet to land any major ambassadorial deal.

The likes of Shatta Wale, Sarkodie, MzVee and Kwesi Arthur are ambassadors for brands including Samsung and Kasapreko but the same cannot be said for artistes from the Gospel fraternity.

In a discussion with Showbiz recently about why they were not landing such lucrative deals, Gospel artiste, Gabriel Kwame, popularly known as Quame Gaby, said corporate Ghana was to blame for that situation.

Speaking passionately about the issue, the former regional manager of telecommunications company, Tigo, said corporate Ghana was oblivious of the Gospel industry’s growing demand and huge following in recent years.

“It would be wrong for anyone to think that Gospel acts were still living in the olden days when things were not done professionally. Times have changed now and the new crop of artistes are making the genre more attractive by putting the right structures in place.”

“The likes of Joe Mettle who have become globally recognised indicates that we are doing something right but it is possible the good deeds and exploits haven’t been noticed by corporate Ghana,” he stated.

Quame Gaby, who held various departmental positions at Tigo, disclosed to Showbiz that corporate Ghana preferred secular artistes as ambassadors because they thought them to be more professional than Gospel artistes.

Recounting an experience at Tigo, the artiste, who is currently promoting his latest single, Aseda, said it was difficult getting Gospel artistes to patronise a product Tigo introduced at the time to help promote their works.

“I remember that we introduced the Colour Ring Back Tone to aid artistes to promote their works, and while many of the top gospel artistes liked the initiative, just about five leading gospel acts joined.

“Later, I realised the low patronage from Gospel artistes was as a result of the lack of knowledge they had about the service,” he stated.

Though he was disappointed at the improper ways of handling their careers then, the old student of Accra Academy said the trend had changed and Gospel artistes were living up to expectation now.

“Statistics show that Christianity is the largest religion in Ghana and so undoubtedly, gospel music has a large following so corporate Ghana engaging them is definitely not a loss,” he said.

Quame Gaby also mentioned that Gospel artistes were producing good works including videos and that showed they were adapting to change which was commendable.

He pointed out that while Gospel artistes were rebranding to meet the accepted standards, it shouldn’t be an avenue for them to lose focus of the goal of using music as an evangelism tool.

“Good things are expensive but that doesn’t mean we have to toe the other paths to success. Artistes such as Joe Mettle are making it big but are still focused on Kingdom work and that should be an inspiration to everyone,” he added.