Is Rick Ross using our artistes to promote Belaire?

For an industry (music & entertainment) like Ghana’s, one thing that possesses the potential to catapult our achievements is endorsement. Now, endorsements come in various forms, similar to advertisements. Endorsements could be direct or subtle.

A direct endorsement could be the CEO of a major international record label, say, Empire, mounting a podium to address music executives and imploring the world to listen to Black Sherif’s new album. Have you paid attention to Barack Obama’s yearly music playlists he publishes on his socials? That is a big endorsement for the artistes whose songs make it to that list.

Imagine, as an artiste, knowing that the visionary Barack Obama has your song as one of his favorites; that’s a whole bragging right!

Rick Ross is one of America’s top artistes who has had a massive influence on artistes from our side of the world. A lot of rappers here in Ghana would mention his name as one of their inspirations for which they decided to stick to spitting behind mics. Let’s be factual here; Rick Ross is bigger and more influential than any artiste from Ghana. For this reason, anything he says or does in relation to our music industry is big news.

In 2020, when he arrived in Ghana for the Year of Return celebration, Rick Ross was welcomed with an electrifying freestyle from CJ Biggerman. He performed with CJ and promised to put him on his upcoming projects. Later in 2022, he made a video to “big up” a few of our artistes. In that video, he mentioned Jay Bahd, Quamina MP, Kwesi Arthur, and Black Sherif.

Again, in February 2024, Rick was seen in another video with another gentleman who appeared as a member of his team, where they indicated that they were making a 12-track album that would feature 12 different artistes from 12 African countries. 1GAD (Stonebwoy) was name-dropped in the video as Ghana’s representative on the project.

Fast forward, he hopped on an Instagram live session with Stonebwoy, and they had a short conversation. The highlight of the conversation was that in a week, Stonebwoy was going to get a verse from Bad Girl Riri. As a big fan of Stonebwoy and the music industry in Ghana, I was excited to hear that Uncle Livingstone would be on the same record as ASAP Rocky’s baby mama.

On May 7, 2024, after Medikal’s  O2 Indigo concert, he got into a conversation with Rick Ross via Instagram Live, where another promise was made. Both artistes also popped a bottle of Belaire champagne while discussing about collaboration. Now, there’s fire on the mountain. Rick Ross, where are our features?

Let me draw your attention to something; every time Uncle Rick joins any of our artistes on their Instagram live, they make a toast with a glass of Belaire, virtually. Guess what? Rick Ross is one of the major promoters of Belaire. Now, do you remember I mentioned something earlier about subtle and direct endorsements? Let’s connect the dots here.

A direct endorsement for Belaire would be Stonebwoy asking Bhim natives to purchase bottles of Belaire, and a subtle one would be Stonebwoy sipping his glass of Belaire as he talks business with Rick Ross. Subconsciously, they’ve both imprinted the drink brand into our minds. You’ll always remember Stonebwoy when you see a bottle of Belaire anywhere. So the big question comes; Is Rick Ross using our artistes to sell his drink?

I’m not in any position to provide answers to that question, but I can only assume that is not the reality. I must add that Rick Ross is not the only rapper from the States who has thrown electronic support behind our music industry.

Meek Mill recently also hinted that he wants to sign an artist from Ghana to his record label. We are getting tired of the words; we want to see some action.

Granted that these processes usually take time, but any little effort aside from more promises would be so much appreciated.