Different career paths caused Akyeame split – Okyeame Kwame

Multiple award-winner Kwame Nsiah Apau, known in showbiz circles as Okyeame Kwame, has said he had to part company with co-rapper, Daniel Kofi Amoateng (Okyeame Quophi), because the latter wanted to go into full time music production whereas he wanted to remain in active music.

The duo collaborated in the ’90s until Okyeame Quophi decided to leave the scene, but there were media reports that indicated all was not well between with Akyeame prior to their split.

Dispelling this rumour, Okyeame Kwame, who declared himself Best Rapper Alive in a song he recorded after winning Artiste of the Year at the Ghana Music Awards (GMA) in 2009, told Prince Benjamin, host of the Class Drive on Class91.3FM, Friday July 22:

“After 2000, we had stiff competition from Lord Kenya and as young as we were, we did not know how to re-strategise and come back, so we went to the US with Daddy Lumba for a tour and after the tour we stayed in America. We stayed there for two-and-half years and we came back in 2003. When we came back, Okyeame Quophi had…grown into a producer. He wanted to make beats and record jingles and produce music and then I had grown from a quiet person to a more illustrious performer:

‘Let’s go on stage, let’s do this, let’s go and do the performance for free. But he [said]: ‘[No], let’s be like Daddy Lumba and Kojo Antwi, they perform once or twice a year, but they get paid enough. ‘Let us use the concept of scarcity and choice.’ [But] at that time, I was so hungry to wait for choice.

“If I was scarce, I would die, so scarcity was not a choice at that time, so I said: ‘No I can’t wait.’ I had returned from the US with $1000 and it was finished, so I needed to work…but still he did not understand, so I started doing the performances by myself and then it just was orderly that I started recording… and then I went solo. That was what happened.”