Ekow SavageWhen he returned home from his base in Berlin, Germany, last month to promote his latest, album, “Going for Gold”, veteran musician, Ekow Alabi believed that his fame and connections would help him to give his new work some golden publicity.

But no! The musician, who is also known as Ekow Savage, had the shock of his life when his publicist presented a bill of 27 million, (about $3000), for payola (tips for radio disc jockeys).

“The huge amount was supposed to be for some selected DJs in Accra alone. It was unbelievable!” Savage said with a big sigh, in an interview with The Mirror.

The musician has since left for his Berlin base apparently to raise more funds to “sort the DJs out”.

He also observed that the Ghanaian music industry lacked efficient managers, pointing out that there is a general lack of qualified artiste managers.

He added that, the administrators in the industry also had more work to do especially in the area of royalty collection.

“There are more areas from where they can collect royalties to boost musicians’ income.

“I am however very impressed with efforts to bring back live music performances,” he said, and expressed the hope that the new development will put Ghana’s young musicians such as Ofori Amponsah on the international stage.

Savage who teaches percussion and other music disciplines in Germany and other European countries advocated the establishment of institutions to teach young musicians how to play musical instruments.

As a top class instrumentalist, Savage has played with the legendary Jimi Tenor of Finland, the Kabu Kabu International Band in Berlin, Ade Bantu from Nigeria and Ghanaian group Roots Anabo.

His latest album, “Going for Gold” is a cocktail of roots reggae, a little bit of fuck, some hiplife rap and plenty of horns.

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