I have often been saddened by the condition of Sikaman musicians. Of course, some are not musicians. They are jokers who think anybody who can sing a hymn is a musician. And why wouldn’t they think so when people think that every man wearing a rasta hair is a reggae musician?

Well, these days, almost everybody is dreaming of becoming a musician, even some ministers and parliamentarians. And it is never too late for them to begin learning the solfas and composing songs like “If You Do Good You Do For Yourself,” after all, life begins at 60 these days. If you die three years later, that’s your luck.

For the jobless, becoming a musical star is an everyday dream. They think when you are a music maker, you automatically break alliance with poverty. They are often mistaken.

I know people who claim they are musicians but are always fasting not because they are devout moslems or are on a hunger strike, but because even one square meal a day is a perpetual wahala. And the only drink they can afford is the poor man’s holy whisky which has a thousand names including ‘Nyame Bekyere’.

Even most of the popular musicians we see in town claiming they are foreign-based stars are more of hustlers than musicians. When they tell you they are going on tour abroad, it is a careful way of saying they are going overseas to scrub the whiteman’s toilet or pick tomato or apples to save their neck from musical poverty.

When they are back to Sikaman, they appear quite flamboyant with chains hanging all over them. They change the few dollars they have scraped, spread it around and promptly get broke. Then they can organise another ‘tour’. In between tours, they struggle to release an album and that levels them up a bit on the financial balance.

It all points to the fact that the life of the average musician isn’t quite organised. He has no calendar, no programme and no concentration on the job. He has to wash plates, become a waiter, janitor and toilet scrubber while finding time to make music. No musician succeeds in life that way.

One musician I’ll always respect, who thinks deeper than the ordinary Sikaman musicians is Carlos Sakyi. He is not like the Kokoase guitar musicians who see the world just in terms of bitters, a willing girlfriend, constant supply of kokonte and jot.

Carlos, often loved for his percussive overtones in gospel music, and once a gospel-rock star, has studied the life of Sikaman musicians and has evolved a blue-print for a great improvement in their lives work, finances and comfort.

In short, he has simulated a Motown-style environment for musicians and his formula is working with accuracy with the five musicians he has started with. The blue-print is what has brought MEGASTAR into being.  It was launched on September 15, 1995 at the National Theatre.

When it got launched, many probably thought Carlos was “too know or was dreaming more than he should and won’t think about himself. Anyhow, the MEGASTAR is now an institution musicians can look up to, a big phenomenon with lots of promise for struggling musicians.

Music business in the developed world is not the way we regard it cheaply here. A musician is never distracted by how his finances go; his contracts are entered, his engagements made, his interviews arranged, his personal security guaranteed.

Music is his business and that is where his mind is and his attention focuses. Other aspects of his life are programmed for him by his managers. They hire who has to light his cigarettes, massage him, drive his car and the one who will say “Good Luck” when he sneezes.

A bodyguard whose face is exactly like that of the devil is hired to scare off muggers, psychopaths and criminals in general. Sometimes his girls are organised for him.

So the only thing the musician does apart from sleeping and snoring is to concentrate on making music, and true to it, no one can succeed in any venture when he is distracted.

This is how the Michael Jacksons, Lionel Richies, Dolly Patons and Whitney Houstons have made it with dollars packed and over-flowing. They aren’t any better than Sikaman musicians. The only difference is that they know how to organise their lives.

I managed to corner Carlos Sakyi and asked him to tell me how MEGASTAR was doing. He is the Managing Director of Megastar Limited, a music company that has a board of directors and a chairman. Carlos Sakyi shares the proprietorship with a partner. Carlos himself was one great musician who played for a band that beat Eddy Grant on the charts.

“Megastar is in fact a concept born out of the idea that the future security of the Ghanaian musician which has always been in jeopardy can now be guaranteed. Artistes spend too much of their time doing things on their own, chasing money and not concentrating on music. So their full potential is never realised. Some are in fact producing at quarter-rate. That is why they aren’t making much headway,” he told me.

“Megastar is now giving them the chance of the lives.  We handle the interviews of Megastar artiste, their press releases, costume, engagements and everything they hitherto used to do themselves. We get them exposed on M-Net and we have contacted BB to get on their programmes. We handle their finances pay them salaries and bonuses, so they only have to concentrate on music

“Most importantly,” he continued, “we do not make all the decisions. Management always meet with the musicians to take the decisions that affect them.”

But who are the Megastar musicians? One is the great Amakye Dede, a star from birth delivered onto the earth with music on his lips; he is the man who feeds hungry ears with musical salad and harmonic sausages. He is the recipient of many national awards.

Next is Naana Frimpong, a latter-day Carlos-groomed songbird with the voice of an angel. She sings to kill. Her beauty has charmed her audience and they stare and stare at her.

The sensational and fantalising Tagoe Sisters are the next. The twin music machine is one that has produced the cream, arguably the very best, of gospel music all these years. I hear they are inseparable; not even their better-halves can keep them apart. Are they Siamese? They dance, and when on stage, they move the crowd.

Then comes Reverend Yawson who is a known songwriter. He is imbued with the Holy Spirit, speaks in tongues and of course sings in tongues. He is God’s representative on the group.

What about my good friend and super-heavyweight, Jewel Ackah?  He is a star figure. His appearance is awe-inspiring, his voice golden. A great delight to be-hold when at his best in stage-craftsmanship, he has beaten his contemporaries to it both on land and on sea.

They are the pioneers of the Motown idea. They are all releasing new albums this year. Let’s see how it all goes.