Gen Z Highlife
Cojo Rae, Kumasi to the Unsung shortlist
Cojo Rae calls his sound Gen Z Highlife. His song Jah Guide trended in Kumasi, and he is one of five Unsung nominees at the 27th Telecel Ghana Music Awards.
St Louis Senior High School in Kumasi gave Cojo Rae a hero's welcome. That is YEN.com.gh's phrase for the day he came through, a young artist from Opoku Ware Senior High School, known as OWASS. He gave an energetic performance of Don't Need Your Love, then a recently released single, to the excitement of the people around him.
Stay on that picture. Another school's ground, a song that was still new, and a welcome with the word hero in it. He earned it with his own record.
Cojo Rae is one of five nominees in the Unsung category of the 27th Telecel Ghana Music Awards. Charterhouse, which organises the awards, named him alongside Siicie, Bosoma, Haeven and Morgan Nero. Five names made the list. His is one of them.
His Audiomack profile ties him to a sound called Gen Z Highlife. He also has a 2026 single, Iskoki, listed on Apple Music.
Start with the name. His Audiomack profile introduces him as an African artist from Ghana and the originator of Gen Z Highlife. A release titled Gen Z Highlife is highlighted on the same page. The page lists his home as Kumasi, Ghana.
Everyone else files him somewhere different. YEN.com.gh calls him one of Ghana's most promising rappers. 3News calls him a budding singer. Audiomack's genre field says Afrosounds. Apple Music lists Iskoki under Afrobeats. 3News described his song Jah Guide as a creative blend of drill music and lovers' rock reggae. Gen Z Highlife is the term on his own page, and it is the one worth using. It puts a generation and a Ghanaian music tradition in three words, and it does not ask permission from the existing categories.
Jah Guide is the song 3News wrote about when it reported him signed to Wayne Chavis Records. The producer was Tubhani Musik, who 3News says has made records for A-list acts in Ghana such as Strongman. The outlet reported that Jah Guide had been trending for weeks on streaming channels, especially in Kumasi. It tied that local pull to his educational background. He completed Opoku Ware Senior High School in 2022, 3News reported.
The numbers in that report are worth reading slowly. Don't Need Your Love and Jah Guide together passed 1.7 million streams on Boomplay alone. He had more than 11,000 followers on Instagram and 135,000 on TikTok. 3News reported that he was tipped to be nominated, and possibly to win, in the Unsung category of VGMA 23. It said many industry players projected him for that category.
For young listeners in Kumasi, the story holds together. 3News linked the city's streams to his schooling. YEN.com.gh placed him in the footsteps of Yaw Tog as the next rap sensation out of OWASS. Read side by side, the two reports point the same way: school is part of how Kumasi hears him. A crowd at St Louis cheering an OWASS artist is that idea in one afternoon.
His Audiomack page shows the reach beyond the city: 307,796 followers, 630,398 monthly listeners and 24,796,035 total account plays.
The Unsung category is built for an artist at this point. Beyond the prestige, the winner earns a performance slot on the main awards night. The reigning Unsung Artiste of the Year is Yaw Darling, who won at the 26th TGMA in 2025. Making the five-name list is a result on its own.
Iskoki, the single. Apple Music lists it as one song, three minutes long, filed under Afrobeats, with the year 2026. The page shows 18 September 2026 beside the word Preview. The copyright line reads ℗ 2026 Cojo Rae.
His Audiomack page also highlights Gen Z Highlife, I'm Not Safe, One in a billion with Baba Tundey and Higher we go with Danflick.
What Iskoki's hook does, how his voice sits on the beat, whether the drill and lovers' rock threads from Jah Guide run through it: those are calls for the ear. The release page is linked below. Press play and make the first call yourself.
“Five names made the list. His is one of them.”
