Ghanaian music producer based in the United States of America, Jeff Quaye (Jay Q), has opened up about why his presence has not been felt in Ghanaian music productions for some time now.
According to him, he has not retired from music production and audio engineering but he hardly does beats for Ghanaian artistes in recent times.
Speaking to Joy FM‘s arts and culture journalist Kwame Dadzie in an interview on Saturday March 22, 2025, the award-winning producer said his reason for staying away from a lot of Ghanaian works is that a lot of the people that want to work with him do not meet his booking specifications.
“I still do music but not within the Ghanaian space like it used to be. The reason is that even though because of technology and the internet most of the artistes reach out to you wanting to collaborate with you in terms of producing something for them.
The narrative in recent times have been that ‘oh you know I am an independent artiste, there is no record company, I don’t have enough budget’. Back in the day, if you knew of my works, during the time I was working with Mzbel and other musicians people thought I was one of the producers that charged high in Ghana,” he noted.
Jay Q said he is not ready to charge Ghanaian artistes less because “how you sell yourself is how people will buy you.”
He also noted that most of the people that have expressed interest in doing music with him, usually want to do things that are in vogue but would always prefer to stay true to his craft.
“I have been very quiet within the Ghanaian space for that reason and other reasons too with regards to what our music is now. It’s like if you jump on the scene people want you to follow the trend – what other people are doing but some of us who pioneered the hiplife movement and we gave it an identity with the kind of sound that we produce, you don’t except me to toe the lines that other neighbouring countries are doing so that is the problem now,” he told Kwame Dadzie in the interview.
He further explained that when artistes reach out they say they want amapiano and other genres but he is more concerned about defining the space as he did with ‘jama’ hiplife.
About Jay Q
Jeff Tennyson Quaye, is widely considered as one of the pioneers of hiplife because he gave the hiplife genre a new identity through experimental local Ga rhythms.
In the year 1993, a friend of his Nana Sarpong (Accra), visited him with a small keyboard and that was
The birth of his music career happened some time in 1993 when his friend Nana Sarpong visited him with a small keyboard. He spent day and night with his friend’s keyboards figuring out how to play songs.
Not long after that his church spotted his quest to be a keyboardist and sponsored him to Oriental School Of Music (Adabraka, Accra). He later migrated to Ressurrection Power and Living Bread Ministries and met one Fred Kyei Mensah (Fredyma Studio) who taught him music programming.
In the late 90s, he worked with a lot of artistes such as Paapa Yaw Johnson, Alhaji K Frimpong, George Jahraa, Obuoba J.A Adofo, Sibo Brothers, Kakaaku, Pat Thomas, Suzzy and Matt, Jane and Dan, Osuani Afrifa, Andy Frimpong, Collins and Ophelia Nyantakyi, Wulomei, Bukbak, VIP, Ex-Doe, Oman Hene Pozo, among others.
All these productions of Jay Q in the 90s were done with analogue equipment at Combined House of Music (CHM), Accra.
Later he did productions for Mzbel, Obrafour, Daddy Lumba, Ofori Amponsah, Akosua Agyapong, Castro, among others.
In the year 2000, technology was changing so fast that digital recordings were becoming popular, relegating analogue recordings to the back so Jay Q moved from CHM (an analog studio) where he used Cubase and Notator on the Atari computer to virtual sound Lab (a fully digital recording studio) and fell in love with Pro Tools on Apple Mac.
Jay Q moved to Hush Hush studio in 2002 and in 2003, won the Best Recording Engineer of the Year category in the Ghana Music Awards.
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