Ko-Jo Cue

Ko-Jo Cue is the stage name of Linford Kennedy Amankwaa, a Ghanaian rapper and songwriter born on 27 May 1989 in Adum, Kumasi. His grandmother raised him in Bantama, in a crowded family house he still writes about. He was nine when a cousin played him Obrafour’s Pae Mu Ka, and he learnt “Aden” by heart before writing rhymes of his own. At Kumasi Anglican High School, which he entered in 2005, he started treating music as a career. His first recordings, made with the student producer Macfancy and posted online under the name Jazzy Flo, got him signed by Tallal Sangari of Primitive Music.

He put out his Growing Pains mixtape series in 2010, and “Head Nod” from it became his first local hit. Before We Shine followed in 2011 and Before We Shine 2: The Cremation of Care in January 2013. In 2014 “Corolla Music” caught the ear of E.L, who helped him sign with BBnZ Live, and that September he released The Shining. “Lavender”, his 2015 single with E.L, was his biggest song to that point. “My BayBey” with Mr Eazi came in 2016, and MTV Base named him among the hottest Ghanaian MCs of that year.

In 2017 he made Pen & Paper, a joint album with Shaker. Its song “Things We Do 4 Love” with KiDi got a remix with Sarkodie in 2018. His later albums came out under his own Bantama Blues banner: For My Brothers (2019), the EP 21 Memory Lane (2021), I’m Back (2023) and KANI: A Bantama Story (2025). Singles with Fameye (“Abebrese”) and Ayisi (“Onipa Hia Mmoa”) came out in 2025 before KANI, and in October 2026 he reunited with Shaker on “This Trip”.