Kumi GUITAR in an Interview with musicandbeat.net,Samuel Larbi reveals how fame won't stop him f

WHO ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU START YOUR MUSIC CAREER? My name is Nana Yaw Kumi.I love playing guitar a lot so my manager decided to add guitar to my name as my showbiz name. As every musician will say, it wasn’t easy when they started music as their career. It was really tough for me when I started music had nothing easy to the extent that my SSS results were not convincing which put much pressure on me to start something on my own, so I decided to drive a taxi to earn some dimes to pay for my remedial fees to better my results. During that period, I had friends who were also into music as well, so most at times I follow them to studio when they are recording their songs. The road to success wasn’t easy and I was determined to shut down critics from people around me until one I met a sound engineer called ‘Sugar Tone’. I was his errand boy. Every year, he had this compellation he always comes out with, and I have the opportunity to feature in all the three compellations. But I get nothing for the compellations that I featured on because it wasn’t my idea. ’’Mma No Time’’ was on his third compellation which burst on the air waves. Mark Okraku Mante heard the song and decided to manage me as an artist. My first music to be endorsed by my manager was Break into Two featuring Guru. WHY DO YOU CHOOSE HI-LIFE OVER OTHER GENRES OF MUSIC? I choose hi-life because our tradition as Ghanaians must still go on, since the young musicians have ignored it for foreign music. Listening to music worldwide, you can see that all these music portraits their culture. As a good musician you should let your music and culture tell people exactly where you are coming from. I-Life requires a lot of hardworks, good communication skills, good story lines and it is presume that it is for the old and deep thinkers. Am in the middle class age group but I love hi life. WHAT DO WE NEED TO SUSTAIN HI-LIFE IN THIS ERA? Hi-life needs everyone so that it can still survive. Everybody must be involve to move this genre to a higher level. The fact is that, if we were introduced to hi-life in our early childhood stage, we won’t have so many genre of music that we have now. Everybody has the right to choose the kind of genre of music he or she wants to listen to but we should not forget our tradition because that is what make us unique. WHO ARE YOU IN COMPETITION WITH? Am not in competition with anyone but myself because if you are in competition with anyone, it is more or less you are killing each other.Hi-life is a kind of music that you have to do it with self-commitment without competing anyone because we are all created differently. The way I sound in my music is totally different from the way Kwabena Kwabena sounds. WILL YOU EVER JOIN ANY FOREIGN RECORD LABEL INCASES THEY COME FOR YOU AND WILL YOU CHANGE YOUR GENRE OF MUSIC IF THEY ASK YOU TO? What kind of genre of music did they hear before making a step to sign me? They heard me singing Hi-life not Hip pop and that is what am good at. The like of King Ayisoba is doing marvelously great In Europe even though the whites don’t understand the lyrics. Because of the unique lifestyle of King Ayisoba and his band, the whites love him. That culture can only be found in Ghana so they [the whites] have to pay more to see it and they appreciate it very much. So it is better for me to be myself than to sign to foreign record label claiming am looking for greener pastures. Mind you, most of these record labels come with other consequences. WHO IS YOUR MENTOR? Everybody whose dream is to be great in future probably has a mentor who is famous or idol for them so they try to be like that person. But in my case My mother is my mentor and she always advice me not to be profane in my lyrics. I listen to legends like Amatsi Dede, Paa Thomas etc because they inspire me. HOW DO YOU WRITE YOUR SONGS? Well…..it comes by itself when am lonely and thinking. Sometimes something around me can inspire me which will be a brilliant idea that i want to compose music about, but you won’t get the conclusion that that spot, so you have to leave everything unfinished to continue some other time. It takes about 6 months or more to complete a song. That is hi-life because each day it comes with new and unique idea to add up to the music. WHICH OF THESE DO YOU PREFER? CDs SELLING OR DOWNLOADS? I prefer cds because you get to know the number of copies you sold out and it will strengthen you to do more if only your previous is not encouraging.Hardwork pays so you don’t have to rely on downloading to survive. Downloading is killing the industry that’s why most artist base their base income on performance and iTunes downloads. I missed the day when people had all volumes of music of a particular artist. DOES THE DECISION OF YOUR MANAGEMENT AFFECT YOU? Yes!!!Reason why am saying that is, I quiet remember I wrote ‘Mma no time five good times before my management accepted it. It was so hectic for me but I had no option because he is my manager. I don’t decide which kind of show I go to or I don’t have to go even if it is am willing to go.