The radio presenter cum reggae musician who landed a deal to deliver lectures at some universities in the United States and Canada including University of Central Missouri and the University of Kansas said they paid what was due him unlike his days with one of Ghana’s media giants.
“I have never been paid like that in Ghana. When you are working in Ghana, you get paid with your passion. Over there [abroad], you negotiate. ‘This is what I want to be paid. This is what I’m worth’,” he said in an interview with Vibez in 5.
According to Blakk Rasta, considering the nature of his radio show, the research which went into it and the impact, he deserved more than he was given.
“On Radio, I did it with the passion. Radio is just passion. There were several months I never even touched my salary from Multimedia. Multimedia is one of the good paying places. Certainly, you will not be paid your worth. They will always try to downplay that and you’d always have to go to your boss and say ‘I need a raise’. With Multimedia, you’d be asked to bring the target etc. before you’d be paid and I always got that. While I was at Hitz, I was the highest paid but that was not what I was worth considering what I was doing: the research, the brain racking,” he noted.
Asked how much Multimedia Ghana Limited, owners of Hitz FM paid him, Blakk Rasta responded, “I was paid about a quarter of what I deserved. And that happened to be the best ever paying job in Ghana. I went to universities, got a degree and decided to put those degrees under my bed and go out and deal with natural Jah Jah wisdom... that was my passion. It wasn’t money.”
Blakk Rasta, known in real life as Abubakar Ahmed resigned from Hitz FM after eight years with the station. He announced that he no longer had inspiration to continue staying at the station.
This was two weeks after he was dragged before the Privileges Committee of Parliament for claiming that about 80 percent of Members of Parliament (MPs) smoke marijuana.
“When I was invited by Parliament, my employers did not even sit me down before the invitation so we plan on what exactly we should say there and how things should go, they did not get a lawyer for me, nothing; nothing like that happened. Even my HR who was there knew next to nothing about the incident when he was questioned about the issue and what exactly I had said.
“I did not get any support from Multimedia, which I thought was unfair. I thought once I was with you, I should get your support. Even if you do not agree with what I said, you can go and say you do not agree and that you are pleading for clemency. But that was not done and I even had to look for my own lawyer.
“No one was interested in my wellbeing as far as that invitation was concerned; but they were rather interested in the story and in getting the news, so they [Multimedia] set up their gadgets and carried the news live both on radio and television,” the ‘Salaga Solider’ detailed what informed his shocking resignation to NewOne.
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