I was forced to crown Kuami Eugene as ‘King of Highlife’ – Amakye Dede

Four years after crowning Lynx Entertainment signee, Kuami Eugene as the ‘King of Highlife’ for the next generation, Amakye Dede has spilled the beans about what inspired the act.

The highlife legend has said in a recent interview on Asaase Radio that he was forced to confer the said title on Kuami Eugene during the 2019 Vodafone Ghana Music Awards after the latter had won the Highlife Artiste of the Year award.

“Although I did that [crowned him], it was not my will to do that but they forced me to crown the boy. That’s the reason I did that,” he said.

“Even the crown they gave to me to put on his head, I gave it to someone to place it somewhere. But later, they gave it back to me to adorn him with it,” Amakye Dede further stated in the interview.

This is the first time Amakye Dede has passed a comment on this matter even though his manager Kwasi Aboagye of Peace FM gave the same explanation when the incident happened in 2019.

In one of Kwasi’s reports, he intimated that Kiki Banson, a member of the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards Board and a coordinator of the event at the time, was the one that asked Amakye Dede to carry out the exercise on Kuami Eugene.

This issue stoked a lot of controversy in the media circles as many stakeholders of the music industry including Zapp Mallet and Bisa Kdei detested the act.

For a lot of people, Kuami Eugene, although a hardworking and promising highlife artiste, was not ripe for the crown. They considered the act as premature and injurious to the future of the burgeoning highlife musician.

Speaking to JoyNews, Kuami Eugene refuted the rumours that the act was planned, adding that, it rather served as a blessing to him.