Ghanapiano and Its Cousins
Ghanaian artists cook amapiano their own way
Dope Nation fused amapiano to highlife and hiplife, Chief One to an Ewe sound; a PR firm says Scott Evans took it to church.
The lesson was about the bounce. When the South African DJ and producer Champuru Makhenzo visited Ghana, the twins B2 and Twist, who record as Dope Nation, had the chance to learn from him, the BBC reported. "You know the Afrobeats bounce is different from the amapiano bounce - amapiano is laid-back - and he was just showing us everything," they said. They described his way of working with a kitchen image: "Like he's cooking the same type of food but in a different way."
The twins already had a reputation. In the BBC's words, they are award-winning producers as well as a successful recording duo. In 2022 they released Gboza, a song the BBC describes as heavily influenced by the amapiano genre from South Africa, and they gave their sound a name: Ghanapiano. A year later came a seven-track EP with the same title.
Ghanapiano is one answer to a question Ghanaian musicians have been working on. What happens when a South African sound meets highlife, hiplife, an Ewe sound and the church? The accounts describe the same move in different words. The musicians keep amapiano as the frame and put their own sound inside it. Who did it first is still in dispute.
Dope Nation are plain about what they are attempting. "Ghanapiano is a musical experiment for us… a new genre fusing amapiano to our Ghanaian high life and hiplife," they told the BBC. The experiment did not stop at two ingredients. Pulse Ghana described their song "Check My Zingo" as "a captivating fusion of Afrobeat, Highlife and Amapiano."
Chief One tells the story differently, and he places himself at the start of it. He told Andy Dosty on Daybreak Hitz he was the first to drop amapiano in Ghana, MyJoyOnline reported on 24 March 2025. He dates his first amapiano song to 17 August 2021.
The claim has a rival. Chief One dispelled the claim, MyJoyOnline reported, that the producer Appietus may have been the first to experiment with the amapiano sound, through 5Five's "Mujebaya". Who was first is the kind of question music arguments are built never to settle.
His account of the recipe says more than the date does. According to MyJoyOnline, Chief One says the Ewe sound he fuses into his music is what gives it the Amapiano vibe, and that this is what makes his version distinct from the South African one. "Me my amapiano wey I dey do, you go see say I fuse in my own sound," he said.
The church got its version in 2021 as well, according to a press release from Soundspace PR republished on Rapzilla. The firm defines Gospel Amapiano as a blend of South African amapiano with gospel music, says it gained popularity through TikTok dance challenges, and credits the Ghanaian urban gospel artist Scott Evans with taking the sound and bringing it "to the church" with his first Gospel Amapiano song that year. The same release says that in 2022 he became the first Ghanaian urban gospel artist to pass one million views. Those are the firm's figures.
His single "100 Percent" was produced by Nektunez, whom the release calls a Konvict Music signee. The release says it moves between English, Ga and a third language. One amapiano base and three languages, aimed, in the firm's telling, at the church.
The meeting was already on a festival bill. Previewing the first Afro Beach Festival, slated for December 2022 at Best Western Plus in Nungua, Accra, MyJoyOnline asked: "What happens when three of Africa's very own genres – Amapiano, Highlife and Afrobeats – clash on one stage?" The bill put South Africa's Costa Titch and Nigeria's Baby Boy AV beside Kofi Kinaata, the songwriter from Takoradi in the Western Region whom the outlet describes as known for his rap style, primarily in the Fante dialect.
Clash was the outlet's word, but none of these accounts describes replacing amapiano with anything. Read together, they suggest the borrowed part is the floor, and the Ghanaian part is what stands on it.
A kitchen image is where the twins began: the same food, cooked a different way. In Ghana, many hands now share the pot. The argument is who stirred first.
“Like he's cooking the same type of food but in a different way.”
- BBC News: Dope Nation, Ghana's musical twins riding the amapiano wave
- Pulse Ghana: DopeNation drops Afrobeat-Highlife-Amapiano fusion in "Check My Zingo"
- MyJoyOnline: Amapiano, Afrobeat, Highlife clash in first-ever Afro Beach Festival in Ghana
- MyJoyOnline: I'm the first artiste to release amapiano song in Ghana, Chief One
- Rapzilla (Soundspace PR): The Emergence of Gospel Amapiano in Ghana