Catch them young and they shall be yours forever is a popular saying. In musical terms you can say catch them young, nurture them, give them better deals and they will start laying the golden eggs which will send you smiling to the bank.
Only few artistes have been able to release two albums with the producer who discovered them. The normality is to release the first or maiden album and the artiste jumps to the next available producer for the fear of being exploited or cheated by the producer who discovered them.
The idea that ‘when am successful in this’ means ‘I will be successful in that’ is bogus to me. The fact that one is a good engineer does not mean he can be a good doctor. However, producers exploit artistes all the time, because they feel they are doing them favours by producing their songs. Rana is the latest musical group to have suffered in the hands of a producer.
Rana is a musical trio made up of three guys namely Kobi Rana, Kojo Rana and Kofi Rana. They spoke to
GhanaCelebrities.com about their supposed beef with Appietus, one of the best sound engineers in the country now.
Rana were spotted by Appietus (the man in the mix) during the first edition of the Nescafe African Revelation, where they placed third to Praye and Wutah with the name Adinkra. Their name was changed shortly after to Rana, a hausa term which means ‘The Sun’.
They are arguably one of the best groups around whose songs and stage performances are a delight to watch. They met at St. Augustine’s College where they had their High School education. They signed a contract at Creative Records, after which they went back to school to further their education.
They Kojo, Kofi and Kobi studied Computer Science, Agricultural Engineering and Arts at Catholic University of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and University of Ghana respectively.
After successfully completing school, their single ‘Baby baby, I love you, I love you, I need you, need you, I want you’ was released, which latter became one of the popular songs in that year. It is a simple beautiful song which is loved by most people.
What motivates them? “We are motivated by success, nature, love and everyday activities” said the trio.
Why They Left Appietus’ Creative RecordsLike any other human, they all have dreams; and these dreams are time bound.
Since time and tide waits for no man, they felt they were wasting away and had to make a move. Expectations and pressures from their various homes were mounting. They had to take their own destiny into their hands and make a move.
“We realized that Appietus was not in the good position to take our carrier the direction we wanted it to go plus
Rana's X-Factor Promo Cd
resources to undertake and push the project was on the low side. Our album “No Limit” which took a lot of years and sacrifice to produce was never released, this was also a factor that triggered our decision to leave Appietus’ label. This move we made on very genial terms with Appietus who understood our plight and concern”.
Thinking Appietus will get them better deals, Kojo and Kofi resigned from their formal jobs to do music full time. This also became a big concern to them because they had no choice than to make a living out of their muisc.
“Though Appietus is a good sound engineer, he is not necessarily a good manager. The two are different in many ways. We were around for 5 years and he could have made a fortune out of us. We were always available and even gave him a lot of ideas for promotion which all went down the drain”.
Rana were with Appietus for 5 years. According to them, Appietus started breaching the rules in their contract, so as far as they are concerned, that contract is null and void. They explain further.
“We were shell shocked when we heard that Appietus had called us a ‘
bad investment’ on a radio interview. A lot of people had asked us prior to the interview Appietus had on Hitz FM why we left his label but we were tight lipped because we felt what happened between us two was purely our business and the most important thing was that we had moved on and done that on amicable terms”.
Though disappointed, Rana showed appreciation to Appietus “We have nothing but appreciation for Appietus but we are heavily disappointed in him for those derogatory remarks.
So many things happened whilst we were on his label, terrible things he did to us but we deem it not necessary to wash our dirty linen in public”.
“We are smarter than that. We will rather talk about our new project which is already making waves in the entertainment circles.
A good manager can even invest in garbage and still make it count. Kudos to the Zoomlion owner, he invested in an area where no one dared and has become very successful, that’s who we call a good business man or manager. Appietus in the first place saw the potential in us before deciding to work with us, that’s the most important thing”.
“We are talented and we are going for gold, no derogatory comment or obstacle can stand in our way. The Lord is our strength and nothing can stop us.
“We are not fighting him. We will never do that even if he fights us. Because we know that he had good intentions but somewhere along the line he derailed. We left the label on very genial terms. We appreciate him because, he gave us the spotlight and God bless him for that”.
New Album X-FactorThe trio have put the first album and the Appietus cold words towards them behind and are ready to release their album, which they call X-Factor
.The trio is on a new record label, Storm House Entertainment. A label set to take the entertainment industry to a new level. Kofi, Kojo and Kobi said “We are grateful to Appietus for giving us the spotlight but we have to move on, we need to focus on our album”.
They explain the choice of title “X-Factor, because we believe every song on this album is a masterpiece and it has got everything it needs to standout in every competition. You need the X-Factor to excel and this album has got it. We believe it will be one of the best albums to be released this year.
“Rana as a group too has the X-Factor.
means the league of the K’s. Reason being that we all have names beginning with a K; Kojo, Kofi and Kobi and we are a league of extra-ordinary gentlemen”.X-Factor
album has songs like ‘Fly With Me’, ‘Murder The Dance Floor’, ‘So Hot Ft Stonebwoy’ which are already burning the airwaves and the responses are good.Rana wrapped up the interview with
GhanaCelebrities.Com saying “We thanked God, our families, (Appietus, Allen and all the Moni3 Entertainment Crew, Ephriam, Usher Beatz) for working on our songs, friends, fans, foes, all DJS, radio presenters and the media at large for their support and criticisms. We are indeed grateful. We won’t disappoint you”.
