Reggie Rockstone announced his retirement from showbusiness last year, using the God-sent Spacefon Legend nite to officially call his career a done deal.

Personally, I took his retirement as in making records as well as making shows, but ironically, he is now performing shows more than he used to do before his much publicized retirement.

I’m bewildered as to whether he’s retired from making albums only or from oing tracks and gracing shows with his repertoire. Reggie’s career spanned over a decade, but then, was he the biggest selling artiste of his time? Absolutely not. Lyrically, he was and still one of the best, but as to the question of he making monetary gains, I think he was a failure.

He came to alter at the phase of Ghanaian rap with a genre he branded hiplife, at a time when we had the likes of Kwesi Kyei Darkwa, Gyedu-Blay Ambolley and Azigiza Jnr. doing their own.

He’s released, if I’m right, five albums since his emergence, gaining all the fame and recognition he deserves, but his astuteness never matched the capital he accrued from the business.

It can be attributed to his doing, because, during the blossoming part of his career, he perceived himself to be an artiste too good for the Ghanaian terrain, not performing at shows and then, he rebuffed all proposals to feature on songs of other artistes [until recently with Nkasei].

He also didn’t take advantage of the KASSA records to espouse and give succour to then youngsters who were so much engulfed with the hiplife craze.

Of all the albums he has produced, none has been a chart-topper and many thought his ‘last show’ album would at least, compensate for all the flaws in the previous albums, but just like the others, it lacked good promotion and quality marketing. For me and many other fans of Reggie, he’s failed us and Ghana by not being able to propagate and sell hiplife beyond the boundaries of Africa.

The much talked about collaborations with internationally acclaimed artistes like Snoop Dogg and Wyclef on his latest album was just a scam. Honestly, the likes of Lord Kenya, Obrafour and VIP, who took inspiration from him have sold more records than he has. Such a shame.

It is weird that Reggie Rockstone is now desperate to make amends by accepting every proposal to perform regardless of the place or time. My only qualm with Reggie is that, he should clear the air as to whether he’s fully retired from hiplife, just like the way Jay Z has retired from hiphop, or he’s still game.

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