Charterhouse Productions’ Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Theresa Ayoade, has hinted at the return of the popular music reality show, Stars of the Future, with a new focus on female artistes.
Speaking in an interview on Joy Prime, Ayoade noted that the revival aims to elevate and provide female artistes with equal opportunities as their male counterparts.
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“We’ve actually been thinking about coming back with Stars of the Future for women because we need to see more female musicians coming out. The structure of the industry may not be too kind to them, that’s why we may see women struggling to break through,” she said.
The show, which launched talents like Irene Logan, Efya, and Kaakie, went dormant after its 2011 edition, leaving many aspiring artistes without a platform and creating a void in the Ghanaian music scene that has left many female artistes struggling to break through.
Addressing concerns about Charterhouse’s support for female acts, Ayoade revealed that the company has established the Charterhouse Africa Creative Foundation to address industry gaps.
“I think that the scheme is probably a reflection of what pertains in the industry. So I feel that if we have to fix it, we would have to fix the challenge in the industry. To address that, we have set up a foundation called the Charterhouse Africa Creative Foundation, and in that foundation, we’ve come up with initiatives that address some of the gaps that we see in the creative industry,” she explained.
Ayoade elaborated that insights gathered from over 25 years in the industry led to the establishment of the foundation, focusing on female acts who have been sidelined.
“The foundation was set up to come up with initiatives to partner with like-minded institutions to address some of these gaps, and one of them that we’ve addressed is the women in the creative arts. We’ve come up with some initiatives that can bring them together more as a collective and see how we can be more deliberate and intentional about promoting them.”
Theresa Ayoade also noted that while the Telecel Ghana Music Awards is doing its best to provide support, there is a huge imbalance in entries from female artistes compared to males, which needs to be addressed