“The Fake Patois Used By Shatta Wale, Stonebwoy, Others Can’t Be Labeled As Dancehall” – Root Eye

One of Ghana’s foremost dancehall and reggae artistes cum the current host of TV3 Music Music, Root Eye, has revealed that all Ghanaian artistes who claim they are doing dancehall are rather doing Afro-Dancehall. Meaning, the likes of Shatta Wale, Stonebwoy, Jupita, Samini, Episode et al have all failed pertaining to the kind of music genre they claim to do.

 

Born Kwasi Nyarko-Ofei, popularly known as Root Eye had an up-close chat with DJ Roar, the host of Kumasi based Kessben FM’s Entertainment Cirkle, that to sing fake patoi in a song doesn’t qualify the song to be labeled as a real dancehall. Throwing more light on his assertion, Root Eye posited that:

 

There’re certain elements that must be present in a song which has an effect on the human mind. The most important of all the elements happens to be the quality of the sound and the tone. Sadly, Ghanaians don’t pay attention to these critical elements in music. Therefore, what our artistes are doing cannot be tagged as real dancehall as compared to Jamaican dancehall. Simply put, it fits well to be called Afro-dancehall”, Root Eye said.

 

Meanwhile, Root Eye cited Stonebwoy’s “People Dey” as the only song that can be associated with the Jamaican dancehall. Aside that, all the songs the self acclaimed Dancehall artistes in Ghana are doing are nothing but Afro-dancehall. So, it’s suicidal for Shatta Wale, Stonebwoy et al to generally call themselves as dancehall artistes. Nonetheless, he complimented Shatta Wale for his unique style of doing his supposedly dancehall music.

 

“Shatta Wale could be the next biggest artiste in Africa. Forget the Nigerians! He just need to work on the sound. Thus, the fake patoi can’t help him, therefore, Wale has to work on that. To him, Jamaicans laugh at us if they hear such kind of fake patois in our music”, Root Eye quizzed.

 

According to him, Ghana’s pidgin language is unique as compared to that of the Nigerians. As such, Root Eye is promoting for the use of our Ghanaian pidgin and that will make us do good Afro-dancehall than the fake patois. He concluded that, rapping in Twi doesn’t make one a Highlife artiste which is similar to the use of fake patois by Shatta Wale, Stonebwoy, Jupita among others.