It’s sad to say hiplife is dead, says Zapp Mallet 

Emmanuel Mallet also known as Zapp Mallet, an award-winning recording engineer and a record producer has said he is so disappointed in a section of the public who have already reckon the end of the hiplife genre.

Hiplife generally is a Ghanaian music genre that fuses some elements of hip hop with highlife.

The hiplife genre was founded in Ghana in the early 1990s. 

Zapp together with Michael Cooke coined the name hiplife when they were contemplating what name could be given to the genre. 

They ended up with the name hiplife by blending the “hip” in hip hop with the “life” in highlife. The music genre has been the toast of Ghanaians for many years.

But in recent times, some schools of thought have declared the ultimate end of the hiplife genre.

However, speaking with Kent Mensah on Sunday Night on Asaase Radio, Zapp Mallet disagreed with that assertion.

He said, “whether hiplife is dead or not at least it made a mark on the musical scene in the country and I’m just so sad that some people can open their mouth and say that it’s dead…do they say it out of greed or out of sadness… well if they think it’s dead, it can die for them.

“We don’t have vast audience here [Ghana] so if you’re producing music and you don’t fall within that range you are out, which I find worrying because it stifles our talents.” 

Zapp Mallet is recognised as one of the pioneers of the hiplife genre that started in the early 1990s in the country, 

He is also recognised as the only recording engineer to have won the Ghana Music Awards on three consecutive occasions; 1999, 2000 and 2001. 

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