Music legend Kwame Yeboah has disputed the Highlife kingship of singer Kuami Eugene.

Speaking to Kwame Dadzie on Showbiz A-Z on Joy FM, sound engineer and composer Kwame Yeboah lamented that, “Highlife music is dead in Ghana, right?”

The revered music director and producer doubled down, challenging, “Tell me, who is doing highlife in Ghana?”

He regretted young musicians had strayed from the rich traditions of Highlife, adopting inauthentic means of making the legacy music. He, however, saluted music band Santrofi for making and exporting true Highlife.

“Well, Kuami Eugene is not a big expo because the music he does is computer based so it’s different. If you play Santrofi’s songs and you play Kuami Eugene’s songs you can hear what I mean. One of them is played with live instruments, one of them is played with computers,” multi-instrumentalist Kwame Yeboah expatiated.

Kuami Eugene came to prominence via a Highlife song titled Angela in 2018. A year after, during the Vodafone Ghana Music Awards, he was crowned a Highlife king by one of the genre’s icons, Amakye Dede. However, in a 2023 interview on Asaase Radio, Amakye Dede revealed he was forced to carry out the gesture which came as a huge endorsement for singer-songwriter and music producer Eugene.

Kwame Yeboah, per a 2022 YFM interview, “started playing drums at the age of five, then moved on to guitar at age 7, then gradually at 14 switched to playing keyboards”. He has worked with Highlife icons Kojo Antwi and Amakye Dede, and R&B icon Craig David, to name just two of his powerhouse collaborators. Yeboah has endorsements from UK instruments maker Roland and Germany's Steinberg.