Sunday, June 7, 2009

Radio: The Ubiquity of Jeremie

Is it just me or is Jeremie's voice all over radio these days?

Jeremie hosts the Y-Lounge every night, one of the most popular shows on Accra's most popular youth radio station YFM. She's pretty damn good at it too, especially if yo!yo! music is your thing. I'm too old. My sister jokes that when YFM claims to be the station 'for the young and young-at-heart' I fall into the latter category: ouch!

It's Jeremie's voiceovers that I'm a little tired of though.

I work at a radio station so the radio is always on, and barely an hour goes by when Jeremie's not-quite-and-yet-somehow-just-maybe-(or-not)-authentic American (?) voice jumps out of a speaker somewhere, trying to persuade me to buy something, do something or go somewhere. I think she's the official female voice for Tigo but besides that, she has either inspired an army of clones or she's winning a small war to corner the female voiceover market.

Don't get me wrong: I admire her work ethic. I even like her personally: we had a nice little verbal spar the other day when her colleague/my friend Ms. Naa called me on-air to ask whether Jazmine Sullivan or Keri Hilson is the better artist. I dig Keri but I figured Jazmine takes it. More diversity and she doesn't get accused of being Rihanna all the time. Listeners agreed with Jeremie though so Keri took it, which was always going to happen: kids will vote for straightforward R&B over new soul music everytime. Anyway, as I was saying, I like the lady but I can only take Jeremie's voice in small doses. Way too much energy and, like I said, I'm way too old.

Diversity's always good: could someone give the girl some competition already?

4 comments:

  1. Hahaha, I hope you are not starting a "war of the DJ's" with this post. I like Jeremie's show on the Y Lounge but it's more her music and less her voice. I don't really like the "Ghanaian-Americanised" accents which is my only issue with Y Fm. EVERYBODY has an "American" accent or tries to sound like they do...

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  2. My reply to this message is a bit too long so I decided to blog about it instead.Its one thing I've been meaning to get off my inflated chest for quite sometime now.

    Follow the link to my blog to read about it.

    http://fprint.blogspot.com

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  3. @Que Jeremie is not bad for a presenter but the accent is killing me chale.. little less America a bit more Gh would do it for me.

    I think she could also spice up her show a little bit. to make it more interesting.

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  4. Interesting discussion here...I must be the only one in Ghana trying to fake a Ghanaian accent! One a serious note... I think locally acquired foreign accents on the radio mainly stem from the type of music they are associated with....ie the latest Hip-hop and R&B mainly of American origin. If Jeremie's show was mainly hiplife/highlife centered would the American accent really make sense?

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