Music producer and CEO of Lynx Group Limited, Richie Mensah, has criticised Ghana’s creative industry for lacking the structure and economic output needed to attract meaningful government support.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z, Richie said the industry cannot rely on entitlement or repeated calls for assistance without first demonstrating its value.
“I say all the time that leave government alone, leave associations alone. Leave everybody alone and do what you can do. He who embarks on a worthy cause deserves a push."

“You see I have mentioned earlier that as much as I have had a lot of challenges, I have also had a lot of support. But every support I have received in my life has been earned. I wasn’t given the support in vacuum. I was given the support because I proved it, that if you support me it’s worth your time and money,” he said.

He urged creatives to focus on productivity and professionalism instead of waiting for help from the government or associations.

According to him, the sector has failed to present a unified front which are key reasons for its neglect in national development agendas.
“The reason government won’t support creative arts is because it’s not worth their time. Let’s be very honest. You have artistes and media people standing there talking about ‘do this for me, do this for us, we deserve this, we are so entitled, stop talking,” he stated.

Drawing comparisons with the U.S., he cited California’s entertainment-driven economy as a reason why the American government invests in the arts.
“California has a higher GDP than Texas. This means in US entertainment is bringing in more money than oil. So when you see the US government support entertainment, when you see them pass laws to help entertainment, how LA has laws that favour its own writers and everything, it’s not because the President or the Minister likes music, because they understand that it is making them enough money to invest in other things,” he said.

He expressed frustration over the lack of professionalism within the Ghanaian entertainment space.

“When we can’t get our act right, who do we want to support us? When we are doing things the way we are supposed to. We can’t even organise enough. And I don’t even mean an association. If you put five artistes in Ghana together, two of them have beef. If you are organising an event right now, the vendors have beef with each other, media houses have beef with each other. We can’t even get our part right,” he said.