MUSIC
RCee started off making Afropop before shifting into a fusion of highlife, funk, and pop that has made him one of Ghana’s most exciting artists.
In Ghanaian culture, funerals are considered a transition to the spiritual realm rather than a time of mourning. Owing to that, a typical Ghanaian funeral is often vibrant, spanning days, and featuring a celebratory tone, complete with elaborately designed coffins, strict but sometimes colorful dress codes, and very lively music. From groovy highlife to upbeat gospel music, you will find none of the somber, sorrowful music one might hear at a funeral. This is the culture that Ghanaian music star RCee grew up around while living in Kumasi, a quaint town more than five hours outside Accra. This is also the culture that first introduced him to the allure and power of music.
“I lived in a community where every weekend there was a funeral going on somewhere. There was no weekend you wouldn’t see someone having a funeral,” RCee tells OkayAfrica. When the funerals were over, RCee (full name: Austin Boamye Antwi) would be introduced to even more highlife musicians by his father, from Paa Bobo to Daddy Lumba to Kojo Antwi. The genres he was introduced to also included reggae and pop.
It makes sense then that RCee’s music is a vibrant culmination of those varied influences. He is one of the few Ghanaian artists giving highlife music a contemporary perspective without diluting its traditional roots.
Alongside highlife, RCee’s sound also veers into elements of Afro-pop, funk, and soft disco. In his discography, boasting of two EPs, How Did We Get Here (2024) and the latest Young Daddy (April 2026), it is easy to find music that is timeless and resistant to the zeitgeist. In combining traditional genres with modern iterations and lyrics that speak to the times, RCee’s music takes on an innovative and consistently surprising candor.
RCee represents an emerging generation of artists looking towards the past not merely for inspiration but for perspective. But for the Accra-based singer, it took a minute to get here.
Sticking a landing
When RCee released his first single, “Made In Ghana”, it was 2022, and his sound was purely Afro-pop in its most generic form. His sound didn’t have the distinctive playfulness it does now.
“As an artist, you have to be moved by a purpose and a certain direction, and I think I didn’t have it that time,” RCee explains. “I know I was talented and I could make any sound I wanted, so that’s what I was doing at that time. [Now] I feel like I have a purpose and a certain direction I’m following. I feel like a messenger right now more than before. So I would say I’m more deeply rooted, that’s why the sound is different now,” he says.
The influence of highlife on RCee’s creative process translates beyond the sound. Growing up, he was just as fascinated by the visual language many of the genre’s frontrunners embodied as he was by their music.
“At that time, it was the album covers. It was quite artistic, and the sound itself, how they were using storytelling, getting you so in tune with the sound to hear the story, that was the most interesting thing about highlife for me.” His own language mirrors that specificity. You’ll find on his person, cowboy hats paired with flared jackets, dark glasses, and an easy, old-world swagger that feels charming.
Like his predecessors, RCee’s music takes on themes that reflect the times while making space for interiority. In Young Daddy, he considers the many shifts and turns of emotional entanglements while keeping things slightly philosophical. In “Sweety”, the opening track, he’s more beseeching, asking a lover to stay, to not end things quickly. It’s a song that borrows the plain-speaking and honesty common to highlife music. And in “Money Makes The World Go Round”, a track RCee admits he enjoyed making the most, he is sleeker, even almost philosophical about the delights of money while singing over a reimagined pop beat.
Early Days
Like most artists, RCee knew he could sing from an early age. But at school, he had his eyes set on academic work. The rigor of study called to him, and his path seemed laid out for something more traditional than a creative career. “All I wanted to do was to study, pass my exam, come out with high grades, and go be a doctor or a pilot,” he says.
All that changed in form two when he began to enjoy the Saturday entertainment sessions at his boarding school. They were mini open-mic sessions that boasted numerous talents. “Boys were coming to rap, to sing and to dance, but I felt I could do better than even some other guys who do it on stage and take all the applause,” RCee remembers. “They actually pushed me on stage one Saturday to do something, and then I killed it, and I started building the confidence off that. I loved the applause, and everything got exciting.” What followed were a few records and freestyles, a short-lived boy band from which RCee got his stage name, and a journey that has reshaped his entire life path.
For RCee, tapping into highlife was a creative delight, allowing him to make music outside the box. It was also a career risk, seeing that at the time he started, Afro-pop was on the rise. “I would say the feedback from people gave me the confidence to really embody what I have and what was deep inside me,” he says. The singer describes his creative process as one that is varied. “Depending on the mode and the vibe,” he admits. “Sometimes I’ll lock myself up in the studio, be there for days, be there for like a week, and record one song because I need a certain mood and I need to be in a certain zone to create that sound.”
Looking forward, RCee is content knowing that the risk paid off and the message he is carrying is getting across. “I feel it’s actually influencing the future of Ghanaian music. Seeing my generation jumping on high life songs and making high life records,” he says. “Even the art itself, the art, the aesthetics, the whole thing about Rcee, I feel like it’s really influencing the culture.”
