Ghana has spent nearly a century producing extraordinary music, from Jacob Sam's 1928 highlife landmark Yaa Amponsah to the Afropop stars filling stadiums today. Yet an opinion piece published by GhanaWeb on November 9, 2026, argues the country has failed at the one thing that turns stars into wealth: building strong music businesses.
The article, titled Record Labels are Dead in Ghana according to GhanaWeb, makes a blunt case. Ghana exports talent while importing the business power to profit from it. The money, the author writes, loses its way somewhere between the recording studio and the international bank account.
Ghana once ran a real recording industry
This is not a story of a country that never knew how to commercialise music. In the 1920s, companies such as Zonophone and His Master's Voice were already recording Ghanaian music for commercial sale. In 1948, Decca opened a permanent studio in Accra, recognised as the first of its kind in West Africa, and it hosted giants like E.T. Mensah's Tempos, King Bruce's Black Beats and E.K. Nyame's Guitar Band.
By the 1960s and 1970s, Ambassador Records, Record Manufacturers Ghana and the Ghana Film Studio had turned highlife into a genuine industrial ecosystem. Ghana was pressing vinyl, employing people and exporting culture. Highlife was not just a sound; it was an industry with machinery, investment and commercial ambition.
As one recent retrospective on highlife's commercial history noted, the money in music has always been distributed unevenly, with labels, venues and distributors each negotiating their share while artists earn through concerts, licensing and recordings (a Substack analysis of highlife's business legacy).
What happened to the labels?
The vinyl era collapsed under economic hardship and cassette duplication in the late 1970s and 1980s. Businesses like Frimprince Music, Megastar and Soul Records kept the market alive, and later Slip Music carried highlife and gospel into the modern age.
The 2000s brought a new wave. Richie Mensah founded Lynx Entertainment in 2006 and built structured talent development that produced Asem, Eazzy, MzVee, KiDi and Kuami Eugene. Samini Music, Black Avenue Musik, BBnZ Live, Sarkcess Music and Burniton Music joined the field. Most of them have since scaled down or disappeared from the spotlight.
The problem, the GhanaWeb piece insists, is not that every label vanished. It is that Ghana has not built enough sustainable music businesses to match the talent it produces. There are plenty of people hunting the next superstar, and far fewer properly capitalised institutions willing to invest in what happens after the discovery.
Distribution is not the music business
Digital platforms have handed Ghanaian artistes global reach without a gatekeeper's blessing, and that is progress. But the article draws a hard line between access and capacity. Uploading songs and chasing streams is one thing; financing campaigns, negotiating licensing deals and turning catalogues into wealth is another.
Independence, the author warns, can become its own trap. Being your own artiste, accountant, lawyer, marketer and CEO can quickly turn musical freedom into corporate slavery. Even stars need a team, and artistes still need transparent partnerships that bring investment, expertise and commercial muscle.
A global opening Ghana should seize
The timing could not be better. Global analysts are now mapping more than 10,500 record labels by country, revenue and genre, and the data shows the Global South's story is still being written (a Hypebot report on the new label dataset). African music is commanding international attention, and directories of active labels and producers across the continent, including Ghanaian names like Lynx Entertainment and Legacy Life Entertainment, show the infrastructure exists in fragments (the AfroYard labels and producers directory).
What is missing is scale, capital and ambition. The GhanaWeb piece calls for the Telecel Ghana Music Awards to restore its Record Label of the Year category, arguing that the businesses behind the hits deserve their moment on stage. It also urges the Ghana Association of Phonographic Industry to reposition itself around modern labels, distributors and music rights.
Ownership, investment and power
For Ghana's growing creative economy and its diaspora investors, the message is direct. Music catalogues are assets that hold value long after a hit leaves the charts. Ghana needs better contracts, effective copyright protection and locally owned catalogues. International partnerships are welcome, but Ghanaian businesses must build enough commercial muscle to negotiate from strength.
The history proves the structures were built once. The current talent proves the raw material remains. What connects the two, the author concludes, is ambition. After nearly a century of making music, Ghana deserves more than applause. It deserves ownership, investment and power.
FAQ
When did Ghana's recording industry begin?
Companies such as Zonophone and His Master's Voice were recording Ghanaian music commercially in the 1920s, and Jacob Sam's 1928 recording of Yaa Amponsah became a highlife landmark.
What was West Africa's first permanent recording studio?
Decca opened a permanent studio in Accra in 1948, widely recognised as the first of its kind in West Africa.
Which Ghanaian labels shaped the modern era?
Lynx Entertainment, founded by Richie Mensah in 2006, alongside Samini Music, Black Avenue Musik, BBnZ Live, Sarkcess Music and Burniton Music, developed much of Ghana's contemporary star talent.