Rahama Zakaria Writes to Fancy Gadam '' Talent Over Hype ''

Miss Rahama Zakaria

Rahama Zakaria is a media pundit and entertainment reporter for Graphic Showbiz. The well respected entertainment reporter hails from Yendi in Northern Ghana. in recent months the northern region capital has received mix reviews from, in, within and outside the region. one of the major problems the young emerging showbiz industry in the Northern region is facing is Talent over Hype or Hype over Talent. 

Miss Rahama Zakaria writes a humble and insightful letter to the the young emerging showbiz industry the Northern region.

'' Your talent is nothing if you cannot hype it. Stay in your little corner and keep saying #TalentOverHype and see where you will be. In showbiz, it is all about hype if you really want to be on top. Your talent is the product that you have to market for people to like and buy. When you have proven yourself, then you don’t need that much of a hype again. But now, you need it most to survive in this competitive industry. You have not proven yourself yet that people will go crazy to look for your latest work of art.  Fancy is talented and his talent alone cannot get him to the top that he and all of us wants him to go if he and his management don’t stop acting lame and thinking that only his talent can help him.

Example of what hype can do for you is D. Black. In Ghana, nobody really sees him as a good rapper but in the African continent, he is seen as one of our best rappers. D Black is among the few Ghanaian musicians whose work were being played on Channel O and MTV first. He explored the other options he had. He marketed his product and he got the attention and even won several awards on the African continent. Revise the phrase “#TalentOverHype” again.

That saying #TalentOverHype or first northerner to shoot a video in Dubai should not be your slogan. If it is coming from fans it is cool by me but hearing this from some of Fancy's management team is pathetic. Some even think because of this video he should be able to get an award at the VGMAs especially new artiste of the year. That category is debatable because Fancy is not dominating on the national scene. Just few tweets from some industry players, radio/TV interview and copy and paste on news websites does not make Fancy a breakthrough star like other new artistes who have their songs been played on most of the radio and TV stations. They are commanding the airwaves not only when they come for interviews on the stations unlike him. Revise your notes and come again Fancy because you have got a lot to do to impress people.

Strategically, the management of Fancy is handicap. The fact that someone is rich or works in a radio station does not qualify the person to manage you. The Dubai video to me is the worse business decision that he and his management team could have ever taken. It was a waste of money because at the end of the day, the video is still average. There is nothing memorable in it that will let me repeat it over and over again. They could have shoot that same video in Ghana at a lesser cost.

That money could have been used to promote his works on most of national media landscape like his counterparts who are also eying the new artiste of the year at the VGMAs are doing. One thing for sure is that he and his team have not set their priorities straight. Whatever comes into their minds is what they will do but that should not have been the case. They need to have a plan and set themselves some target that they must achieve in each quarter, half or a year.

This 6th November concert is one of those unplanned events because I have not really seen enough planning towards it. And moreover, the concert comes immediately after the S concert organized by EIB. Accra is not Tamale. You are not the Beyonce that you can just decide on a date for your concert and people will think of “selling their organs” to attend the concert. Fancy needs a lot of promotions to pull the crowd that he desires so he can boast of that too. I might be wrong since the advert for the concert is targeting northerners living in Accra only. Your concert should not only target northerners but rather every person who enjoy good music and entertainment.

If you want to be known, you need to spend. At this point, I wanted to be seeing Fancy’s videos all over but it is not the case. I have not seen the advert on TV yet. This is the period that Fancy and his management should have paid some radio stations and TV stations to play and also show some of his music videos as well as clips from his past concert to tell the audience who Fancy is and what they should expect from Fancy Come 6th November. 

Miss Rahama Zakaria

Money that should have been used to promote his works on a national stage was used to shoot an average video in Dubai so as to get the bragging right as the first northerner to shoot in Dubai. Small mind thinking that will cost him. What he has done, media personalities will think he has money and they will like to get something from him before they can play his songs. 

In one of my post here, I said Fancy could be the next Chris Brown in a Making in Ghana and I still stand by it. What can only deny Fancy this feat is himself and his management team.

yours truly

Rahama ''