HIGHLIFE act Kofi Kinaata is entreating his colleagues to be mindful of using TIkTok influencers in promoting their songs because of possible abuse by these personalities to set their own agenda.
Although he supports the use of TikTok as an ideal medium to promote songs, Kofi Kinaata says he believes its relevance might be threatened by the influencers who use the songs to make themselves popular instead of promoting them.In a conversation with Graphic Showbiz on Tuesday, June 28, 2022, Kofi Kinaata explained that “no one should get me wrong. TikTok is not a bad place to promote one’s songs. We are in the digital age from which has come TikTok, a platform which is effective in pushing the works of musicians.”“I think TikTok influencers are, however, not helping the purpose of the platform since they promote a song they are paid for. Thus content is not considered often. Setting the agenda for a song to trend rather becomes a priority,” he said.The Susuka hitmaker mentioned that he appreciated the pressure musicians go through to get their songs on the market. However, players must understand that making a hit was a process and not an event.“Making a hit song is like a fruit. It is not healthy when you force it to ripe. Instead of musicians promoting these songs organically, they turn to ‘short cuts’. They are forced to pay influencers to make their songs trend.“And the influencers also do it just for the cash so after a few months when another song is released, they take money to promote it too.Recently, sound engineer/producer Wei Ye Oteng sparked a debate following a post he made on his Facebook page when he stated that TikTok was killing the longevity of songs. In his write up, he said the platform didn’t allow good songs to thrive for long.Kofi Kinataa’s was used by those who supported Wei Ye Oteng’s position as an example of musicians whose songs are still relevant in the system even though he doesn’t use the services of Tiktok.Kofi Kinaata stressed on the need for musicians to let their songs grow organically.“My music is very popular on TikTok and it is not because I paid any influencer to make videos for it to trend but ordinary people who appreciate my songs and creativity take up that challenge.“When you have an influencer doing about seven videos for a song, it will definitely fly. It’s just like having a radio station play a song over and over again.Eventually, it gets into the heads of people. Even if you don’t like it, you will come to love it because it has been ‘forced’ on you but the danger is that you will quickly grow tired of it,” he stated.The reigning VGMA Song Writer of the Year, Fameye, shares the same opinion with Kofi Kinaata.He told Graphic Showbiz that his songs were bigger than the TikTok community and didn’t assess their popularity by trending on TikTok.“I have no issues with my fans performing my songs on TikTok but I won’t pay an influencer to do it and that is why I find it quite interesting when some of my colleagues feel they are way ahead just because their songs are trending on that platform,” he said
