Mr Akwasi Agyeman, Chief Executive Officer, Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), says the Authority, together with creative artists, will collaborate with Spike Lee and his team to explore the business of creative arts.
He said the Legendary actor, film producer and director and his compatriots, who came to Ghana as part of the visit of the US Vice President, Kamala Harris, had been exposed to creative local content.
“They had a State dinner and Ghanaian artistes performed and showed their talents. We need to collaborate on strategies of the business of music, film and see how we could create good local content that can sell for both local and international market,” Mr Agyeman said.
He disclosed this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on what the visit of Spike Lee and other celebrities within the creative space meant for Ghana’s creative industry.
The CEO also said they would soon engage the National Film Authority to discuss key areas of the film industry that needed support and collaboration.
He said the GTA was excited about the response from the African Diaspora to the call of the president to visit Ghana and make the country their home.
“I believe that we are on the right path in terms of Diaspora engagement, so when you have icons like Spike Lee coming in, it only goes to help in the conversation because he has such a huge following and people know that he is in Africa. Thus his feedback to the rest of the world will show that we are loving and Africa is not a jungle that they have been told it is.”
Mr Agyeman said: “It is good we don’t waste such visit. It is good for them to see the castles and tourists site but it will be better to foster collaborations in music, film and other arts like we saw with Shatta Wale and Beyonce, Africa and the diaspora could do exploits.”
He said Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of Gammys a few weeks ago, was in Ghana and the GTA set up a meeting with him and Sarkodie, Kidi, and Samini amongs others.
The meeting was to help understand how to create a Grammy Award-winning content which could help shape our artistes for international appeal, he said.
He also hinted at ongoing plans supporting the tourism and creative art industry financially and technically.
Mr Agyeman said Ghanaian sensation songstress and international artist, Wyala, whose performance at the State dinner held at the Jubilee House took dignitaries off their feet into dancing moves was a testimony of the pool of talent in Ghana.
“It was an opportunity to showcase our own, but we have given that exposure to them and the next phase is to ensure that the conversation does not stay in the room, but goes beyond ‘they came we met and we had a good time but also we are now collaborating.”
