Ghana’s music industry is worth an estimated $150 million and has been growing by roughly 10% annually, powered by Afrobeats, Hiplife, Highlife, Amapiano and gospel artists building audiences far beyond the country’s borders.
Yet industry reports over the past year continue to highlight an uncomfortable reality: a song going viral in Ghana does not always translate into meaningful income for the artist who created it.
Part of the problem is structural. Streaming payouts are notoriously low, often cited at around GH¢0.05 per stream, meaning artists need significant volumes of streams to recover the costs of producing a song, including beats, studio sessions and music videos.
Royalty collection through the Ghana Music Rights Organisation (GHAMRO) has also faced criticism over the years, particularly over concerns about delays and transparency. Some artists have publicly questioned the organisation’s payout processes.
GHAMRO, however, has pointed to progress in addressing some of these concerns. In July 2026, the organisation announced the distribution of more than GH¢1.4 million in royalties, describing the payment as one of its highest-ever digital royalty distributions. It also introduced personalised royalty statements aimed at improving transparency for members.
Another major challenge is piracy, which remains more difficult to tackle.
Industry estimates put annual losses from unlicensed music distribution in Ghana at more than GH¢10 million. Previous efforts to introduce a dedicated national streaming platform to help address the problem have struggled to gain traction, amid challenges including piracy, high data costs and limited local catalogue access compared with platforms such as Boomplay and Audiomack.
This points to a problem that is not only about distribution, but also discovery.
A fan who hears about a new song has historically been just as likely to find an unofficial “download MP3” blog as the artist’s official Spotify, Apple Music, Audiomack or YouTube page.
Every time that happens, the artist potentially loses a legitimate stream, royalty and valuable audience data that streaming platforms use to determine which artists and songs receive greater visibility.
It is a gap that some smaller Ghanaian and Pan-African platforms are attempting to address from the discovery side rather than through enforcement.
One such platform is ghanasong.org, founded by Ghanaian entrepreneur Bright Dwomoh. The platform covers new releases from more than 300 Ghanaian and Pan-African artists but deliberately avoids the unofficial-download model.
Instead, its features embed artists’ official YouTube videos and direct users to their verified streaming platforms rather than hosting or redirecting them to unauthorised download files.
“Piracy doesn’t usually start with someone trying to steal from an artist — it starts with someone just trying to find the song,” Dwomoh said.
“If the first link a fan sees after hearing about a new release is a real Spotify or Apple Music link instead of a download blog, that’s one less stream the artist never gets credited for. It’s a small piece of a much bigger problem, but it’s a fixable one.”
The approach does not solve the broader questions surrounding royalty collection, nor does it replace the policy and enforcement measures Ghana’s music industry needs to combat piracy.
However, as artists, platforms and regulators continue searching for ways to ensure that successful songs translate into sustainable income for their creators, improving the path between discovering a song and accessing its official release could be a practical place to start.
For Ghana’s music industry, the battle against piracy may therefore begin not only with stopping illegal downloads, but with making it easier for fans to find and support the music they love through legitimate channels.
Readers can see how the approach works in practice at ghanasong.org.
