Dough Or Duh
Dough Or Duh is a platform dedicated to making Ghana’s entertainment industry more measurable, data-driven and investment-ready. Founded by Nenebi Tony, a Ghanaian creative and journalist, the blog is home to Juice Index - a set of weekly music charts built on real streaming data from Boomplay, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music and Audiomack. We believe that charting success is the first step to building structures, businesses and a thriving showbiz economy. At Dough Or Duh, we’re not just chasing vibes, we’re putting showbiz on a spreadsheet, combining heart and hard numbers to shape a smarter, more sustainable entertainment industry in Ghana.
I have been living in the U.S. for about three years now. One thing I don’t like about America is, they care about numbers too much. They don’t make enough room for nuance; and heart is the very beginning of life and having an authentic human connection.
I have been a Ghanaian my entire life. One thing I don’t like about Ghana is how little we care about numbers; and math is the only objective metric for ascertaining the impact of any commercial endeavors.
We always complain about the entertainment industry in Ghana. The complaint is always the same. We don’t have structures. We don’t have a real industry in the business sense. I agree with that sentiment and I want to be the change I want to see. I believe data is the beginning of building structures, which in turn builds businesses and businesses build industries.
I may have gotten so many Fs in Core Maths in senior high school and even only made a C in my WASSCE Core Maths but I believe math-backed decisions is the basic brick for building a business, an industry and even an economy, period. I believe we need more math-based decision-making in Ghanaian entertainment.
So I am building Juice Index as a data-verified metric for ascertaining how the music market in Ghana is doing. I believe charts are the beginning of that form of data collection. That is why we are starting Juice Index with four weekly charts.
The Charts are:
- Ghana Hottest, which is chart of the 20 hottest songs in the country.
- Hot Outside, which is a chart of the 20 hottest songs in Ghana, which the primary artist is not Ghanaian.
For clarification purposes. Burna Boy’s Another Story feat. M.anifest will fall under Hot Outside because Burna Boy is the primary artist. Sarkodie’s Gun Shot feat. Davido will fall under Ghana’s Hottest because Sarkodie is the primary artist.
- One5 is a chart of the 15 hottest Ghanaian artists and
- Foreign Cut is a chart of the international artists who are hottest in Ghana in a given week. This charts are the beginning of the work Juice Index seeks to do to bring metric and business consciousness to the entertainment industry in Ghana.
This is not my first rodeo.
In 2010, when I wrote as a reporter for Hi Newspaper, I started the Ghana Movie Chart. It collapsed because it required too much work to maintain.
Every week, I went to Opera Square and walked around asking shops which films were selling and how many copies. Because Opera Square in Accra was not the only major film distribution market in Ghana, I had to rely on a third party to give me the same data from Adum, Kumasi.
The inefficiencies of this system aside, it was not a job one broke 20-year-old journalist could handle. There were too many walks in the sun and sucking of Fanyogo so I stopped.
When I wrote my book,
Everything That Happened and the People Who Made It
, the connections I made at Opera Square came in handy. I was able to tell a compelling story of the history of the entertainment industry in Ghana because I had insight and also I had contacts with people who were willing to telling me inside baseball stories of the early days of the industry.
My book was supposed to be my goodbye letter to the entertainment industry in Ghana. I came, I saw and I had a good time. I was ready to move on, go to law school, get a financial degree and move to corporate. But the more I learnt, the more I want to apply my learnings to the industry. That is why I started DoughOrDuh, that is why I started two podcasts and that is why Juice Index is getting born out of those two podcasts. I understand structure now, I understand infrastructure now. I have worked in other industries in Ghana and the U.S. and the knowledge I have acquired can be beneficial to our industry. That is why I am doing this.
Juice Index is going to be easier to maintain. I use information from the 5 major streaming platforms in Ghana; Boomplay, YouTube, Spotify, AppleMusic and Audiomack to compile the list of songs, assigning number to each song based on their chart positioning on each platform. The goal is to ensure everything is based on verifiable evidence. If we can’t prove it, we won’t say it is the motor of Juice Index.
Ghana show business is my home and I am planning to make it worth investing in.
Juice Index is starting with weekly charts. But this isn’t just a chart brand. The goal is to be a data engine for the entertainment industry in Ghana. In time, we’ll hire economists, lawyers, financial analysts and other business experts and expand into reports, forecasts, investment insights and prescriptions of best practices for the entertainment industry. The plan is to be a thinktank for showbiz. The charts are just our entry point. The future is verified culture. We are putting showbiz on spreadsheet.
Nenebi Tony, Founding Editor.
How We Count Culture
At Juice Index, we believe music is more than just beats. It’s a business, and the business runs on numbers. That’s why we built the Juice Index charts: a data-backed, transparent way to track the music industry in Ghana.
Here’s what we want you to know:
We collect data from the five biggest streaming platforms in Ghana: Boomplay Spotify Apple Music Audiomack YouTube
We separate the numbers by the primary artist’s country of origin: * Ghanaian songs are ranked on the Ghana’s Hottest chart. * Non-Ghanaian songs (yes, including Nigerian music) are ranked on the Hot Outside chart. We rank songs within their group. Your position on the streaming platform is important, but what matters more is how you perform against your peers in Ghana. The top Ghanaian song, even if it’s #5 on Apple Music, is still #1 for us, because it’s the highest-ranked Ghanaian track.
We apply fair rules for collaborations.
The chart belongs to the primary artist.
Example:
Sarkodie ft. Davido = Ghanaian chart.
Patoranking ft. Sarkodie = Foreign chart.
We combine scores across platforms. Your total Juice Index score is an aggregate of your rankings on all five platforms. If we can’t verify it, we don’t count it. We only use publicly available data and documented numbers. No backroom deals, no paid placements, no bias.
About the Founder
Nenebi Tony is a Ghanaian writer, storyteller and data enthusiast with a deep passion for the creative industry. From reporting for Hi Newspaper to authoring Everything That Happened and the People Who Made It, Nenebi has spent over a decade chronicling Ghana’s entertainment evolution. Now based in the U.S., he blends cultural insight with business thinking to help shape a more structured, data-informed showbiz economy. Through Dough Or Duh and the Juice Index, he’s building tools to make Ghanaian entertainment measurable, investable and future-ready.
