Ghanaian musician Jackline Acheampong, popularly known as Gyakie, has revealed the emotional struggles she faced during the early stages of her music career.
In a candid interview with BBC Africa, the “Forever” hitmaker shared how the overwhelming pressure to consistently produce hit songs, especially after the success of her breakout track “Forever,” led her to moments of intense frustration and tears.
Gyakie explained that the expectations from fans to continuously deliver chart-topping music often felt like an unbearable weight on her shoulders. “If I am pressured or shouted at, I am going to grab a tissue and cry. So, I don’t like to be pressured or shouted at,” she admitted. Reflecting on the time following the massive success of “Forever,” she shared, “In the beginning of my career, almost every three days, I would be crying at home because the pressure was getting too much, especially when ‘Forever’ blew up.”
The musician noted that while the desire to produce hit songs can serve as motivation, it can sometimes cross the line into unhealthy pressure. “It’s good when it feels like motivation but different when it now feels like you are giving me pressure to do something,” she said.
However, Gyakie has since developed resilience, learning to navigate the complexities of the music industry and handling negative criticism, particularly from social media. She mentioned how it took her time to become immune to harmful comments, saying, “These negative criticisms that are not coming from a good place, it took me a while to not really let it get to me when people say bad things about me on the internet.” She now handles criticism with a sense of humor, stating, “But now I could see anything about me, where the person knows what he is saying is not true, I would be like, somebody should give me some water to drink because the country is already hard.”
Despite the challenges she faced early on, Gyakie has firmly established herself as one of Ghana’s most celebrated female artists. Her resilience is evident in her career, with her hit single “Forever” surpassing 150 million combined streams, along with several successful releases since. Gyakie continues to thrive in the music industry, proving that with perseverance, she has overcome the pressures and criticisms to become a force in African music.
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