“What Is Stopping Us From Making Our Own Hiplife Documentary?” - Okyeame Kwame

The BBC documentary HIPLIFE REWIND has spurred discussions among professionals in the industry with the primary subject of debate being why the documentary missed out on some of the genre's early pioneers.

Ghanaian rapper Okyeame Kwame joins the discussion and laments the nation's lack of desire to tell its stories. According to him, rather than authoring their own histories, Ghanaians end up criticizing foreigners who write these stories to suit their points of view. He spoke on 3Music Tv’s Culture Daily.

“This is what Africans have been doing every time. We sit down for them to take the Ananse story and they do Spiderman and we complain. What is stopping us? We have cameras we have storytellers. What is stopping us from making our own Hiplife documentary?”

The YEEKO hit-maker admonished there is no need to fight over perspective.

“I am looking at Hiplife from Kumasi. Four hours drive away from Accra, what everyone is doing I didn’t see it. And the same way people in Accra did not see what we were doing in Kumasi. I  started rapping in 1991. I’ve done Twi raps 5 years before Reggie released his thing. But I didn’t call it Hiplife therefore, we need to give him that. I don’t think we need to fight over who gave the nomenclature. The issue is that storytellers from Kumasi must tell the Hiplife story from Kumasi. People in Tarkoradi must tell the story. People in Accra must tell the story. Now you can use your phone and a good audio device to tell your story from your own perspective. I don’t think we need to fight over perspective because nobody has a 360 view. We all see subjectively.”

HIPLIFE REWIND is a BBC documentary that explores the history of Ghana's enduring musical genre by drawing on the life stories of important performers and creators in the industry.