Ghanaian Hiplife legend Okyeame Kofi, known in real life as Daniel Kofi Amoateng, has revealed that the music genre hiplife was developed and defined by his group, Akyeame.
According to Okyeame Kofi , when it comes to hiplife and defining hiplife in Ghana then it is the Akyeame group that was the pace setter .
The Akyeame was a hiplife music group he formed with current rap doctor Okyeame Kwame back in the early days of Hiplife.
Speaking in an interview with Heavy Dee on KETEKE on Max 89.7 FM, Sunday, 22nd June, 2020, Okyeame Kofi said “if you ask me truly and if the subject matter is not rap and it’s fusion then I will probably give it to Ambuley, being truthful and all .But when it comes to hiplife and defining hiplife then it is Akyeame.”
The “Shake that thing” hit maker further added that even Reggie Rockstone, Ghana’s grandpa of Hiplife music, accepts that. It is a done deal and no one can change that fact.
He said “We took the definition of what hip and the life into high life , bit of it and exemplified it. We went into the studio and did that for people to really understand what we mean by the genre Hipife.”
“There are elements of hiphop and highlife in it and we even took it a much higher by fusing it with a little RnB and dance hall.”
“Nana Quame playing the RnB part and Yoggi Doggi playing the dancehall part, it’s like a fusion of lot of things,” Okyeame Kofi said.
In the mid nineties, he and Okyeame Quame came together to form a duo called Akyeame who took hiplife to another level within and out of the boundaries of Ghana.
They came out with five albums, in the year 2000 the duo won the best hiplife rap Song of the year in the maiden edition of the Ghana music awards with their classic piece massan aba. They also won the best RAP group at the Sky award 2001.
