Before he was Pure Akan, he was Kwabena Shy. It was a nickname from secondary school, and he dropped it because, as he later put it, it “didn’t have enough depth, or a story behind it.”
Depth and story are now the whole point. In a decade of releases, the Kwahu-born rapper has built one of the most distinctive catalogues in Ghanaian music: hiplife delivered almost entirely in Twi, stuffed with proverbs, folk tales and old highlife samples, and aimed squarely at making listeners proud of where they come from. Last November he turned that idea into a festival in Accra, and this year he has kept the singles coming with “Masua Adeɛ”, “Ogyidinii” and “Accra We Dey”.
So who is Pure Akan, why did he change his name twice, and what makes his music different? Here are eight things to know.
1. Pure Akan’s real name is Nana Kwabena Appiah
Pure Akan was born Nana Kwabena Appiah in February 1990 and comes from Kwahu in the Eastern Region. The Writers Project of Ghana places his roots more precisely in Obo-Kwahu. Older credits list him as Bernard Nana Appiah, and he has explained why. “I only recently changed my name from Bernard to Kwabena Appiah,” he told Pan African Music in 2022.
The change was part of something bigger. “Embracing my culture led me to change not only my name but my style and approach to music,” he said, and also “my look and even my general outlook on life.” His grandfather was a chief linguist, the okyeame who speaks for a chief, and that heritage of words and proverbs runs through everything he records.
2. He started out as plain “Akan”
His first stage name was simply Akan, and that is the name on his 2015 debut EP and on early songs such as “Me Sika Aduro” and “Man Hole”. It did not take long for listeners to reach for comparisons. “When I first came out with my ‘Akan EP’ people compared me to Obrafour,” he recalled. “With tags like that, I can’t afford to slack.”
The comparison was a compliment he welcomed. Obrafour was the first hiplife artist he ever listened to, and he says the veteran “represented everything I respected culturally.” Okomfo Kwaadee and Lord Kenya were also on his playlist growing up. He was not the only Akan in Ghanaian music, either: in 2018 Ahkan of the hiplife duo Ruff ’N’ Smooth spoke publicly about the newcomer sharing his name. The “Pure” came later.
3. Onipa Akoma put him on the map
His debut album, Onipa Akoma (“human heart”), arrived in 2017 on A-Level Music. It became one of the most-streamed records on Aftown, the Ghanaian streaming platform, and it gave him a loyal following that now calls itself the Akan Abusua, the Akan family.
Those early songs still anchor his live sets. When he headlined Aboa Concert II at Villa Victoria in West Legon in July 2021, the set ran from “Me Sika Aduro” through to “Helebaba”.
4. Nyame Mma is his statement album
After close to three years of work, Pure Akan released Nyame Mma (“children of God”) in August 2021. The 16-track album was built around a single idea. “I wanted my people to become self-aware and appreciate where they come from,” he said. “That whole theme led me to choose the name, ‘Nyame Mma’.”
The lead single, “Mensesa Me Ho”, set the tone. “‘Mensesa me ho’ basically means ‘I’m not changing’ and I wanted that theme to drive the album,” he explained, describing the record as being about “staying true to oneself and your roots.”
The album is full of references older Ghanaians will catch straight away. “Nketenkete” samples Nana Ampadu’s early-1970s song of the same name and name-checks playground games such as ampe and pilolo. King Ayisoba joins him on “Bɔkɔɔ”, Ayisi appears on “Apɔnkye Is a Goat”, and most of the production comes from Twisted Waves, alongside Yung Fly and Mike Millz.
5. He tells an Ananse story across two songs
Tracks six and seven on Nyame Mma, “Asɛm a Esii Kɔyɔbɛda (Baako)” and “(Mmienu)”, tell a single Ananse folk tale in two parts. It was a deliberate choice. “I realized one beautiful tool Akans used back in the day was educating its people using folk stories, proverbs and poetry,” he said.
He considered other stories first. “At first I wanted to use a different story but I finally decided on using the Ananse story because it was the most relevant story universally and had the advice and life lessons I wanted to project,” he said. “Most importantly, it represented the Akan culture.”
It is the clearest example of what he means when he describes his own work. “Unlike other music, my music is both entertaining and educational,” he said. “It’s all in the detail.”
6. Sarkodie and Efya are among his collaborators
Pure Akan does not feature on many records, but the ones he picks tend to matter. Sarkodie brought him onto “All Die Be Die” in 2019, and in 2020 he recruited Efya for “Mensei Da”. The pair reunited on “Yete Apor”, and his catalogue also includes “Saa Ara” with Kwesi Arthur and the UK producer Juls, and the “Wo Kae” remix with Ko-Jo Cue.
His rule for features is simple. “If you have a song, who would be the best guy or lady to feature or collaborate on the project with? That has always been the first step,” he told Class FM in 2022. Of the Efya record, he said: “It has nothing to do with me, who I like and who I don’t like. It’s really about the song.” He is also frank about the business side: “If the artiste is a big artiste, they get to share their numbers with me and if it’s a smaller artiste, I get to share my numbers with them.”
7. His shows are more than concerts
On 26 November 2022, Pure Akan staged the Nyame Mma Experience at the Alliance Française in Accra, mixing music with plays and spoken word. Efya, Worlasi, King Ayisoba, Ayisi and Kofi Jamar joined him, backed by the Senku Live band, and a live album from the project followed in 2023. The Writers Project of Ghana says he has sold out the Alliance Française twice and performed at the Brecht Festival in Germany.
Germany taught him something about language. After playing to a crowd that did not speak Twi, he told Daybreak Hitz in 2023 that the lesson was clear: “People are going to listen to you regardless of the language.” He still sees a catch: “it’s a rap so people need to hear exactly what you’re trying to communicate to them.”
Last year the idea grew into the Nyame Mma Festival, held at the Alliance Française on 29 November 2025. Alongside his headline set with Senku Live there were visual art installations, fashion and indigenous storytelling, with performances from Ayisi, Ko-Jo Cue, Kelvyn Boy, Marince Omario and Wanlov the Kubolor.
8. He wants Ghana’s stars to teach
Pure Akan talks about the next generation more than most artists his age. “My aim has always been to leave the world a better place for the next generation,” he said in 2022, adding that his dream is a creative hub or label “where we can unearth the next Akan and more.”
He has a challenge for the biggest names, too. “I haven’t seen musicians do like master class,” he said on Daybreak Hitz in September 2023. “Have you seen Sark doing a masterclass? That would be so cool for us to get all the information that made him successful.”
He sees himself as part of a new wave of hiplife rather than a throwback. “Artists like Black Sherif and I have a more modernized hiplife form,” he said. His worry is that the genre has lost its pull, with more artists “opting to do Afrobeat or some form of hip-hop.”
What Pure Akan has released lately
He has not stood still since Nyame Mma. “Auntie Bete” arrived in 2023, followed by the album Odo Awaamu in 2024 and an acoustic version of it early in 2025. “Kwappiah Gyina So” came out in 2025, and 2026 has brought “Masua Adeɛ”, produced by Jaja Moto, “Ogyidinii” and “Accra We Dey”, a collaboration with Senkulive and Aduberks.
“The foundation of music is the message,” he once said. “The message will make it last.” More than a decade after a young rapper called Akan was first compared to Obrafour, it is a philosophy that has kept him busy.
Play Pure Akan’s songs on AfroYard
Every Pure Akan album is now on AfroYard, from Onipa Akoma and Nyame Mma to Odo Awaamu and its acoustic edition, along with his singles and features, from “Me Sika Aduro” to “Ogyidinii”. Visit Pure Akan’s artist page for his biography, songs and videos.
