After Kwesi Arthur, Who Should Ghana Send to the Hennessy Cypher Next?

Ghana has placed four rappers on the Hennessy Cypher across four years, with Kwesi Arthur the latest in a line that includes M.anifest, Sarkodie, and Joey B. The question of who comes after Arthur is worth asking now, not because the 2026 edition has even dropped yet, but because answering it honestly requires looking at a Ghanaian rap roster that is wider and more capable than most of the continent has been asked to consider.

The Hennessy Cypher selects one Ghanaian rapper per edition. The selection has never been the same artist twice. If that pattern holds, the following names are the most credible candidates for the years ahead.

Amerado

Derrick Sarfo Kantanka, known as Amerado, was born in Ejisu, Kumasi on February 14, 1995. He built his reputation through competition before he had a formal release: he placed third at Solid FM’s Freestyle Show in 2015 and joined MicBurnez Music alongside Strongman. His first single, “I AM,” came out in 2017.

In 2022, he won Rapper of the Year and EP of the Year at the 3Music Awards and Best Rap Performance at the 24th VGMA for “Obiaa Boa.” His collaboration with Black Sherif, “Abotre,” won Hip-Hop Song of the Year at the Ghana Music Awards France the same year. In late 2024, he surpassed 100 million plays on Audiomack, making him only the third Ghanaian artist to reach that figure on the platform.

What makes Amerado a Hennessy Cypher candidate is not just the awards or the numbers. It is the “Yeete Nsem” series: a weekly rap freestyle format he launched in 2020 that uses current events as material, has run to more than 35 episodes, and demonstrates a consistency of output and a range of topical engagement that cypher formats are designed to reward. He is currently enrolled at the University of Ghana. He is building seriously.

Eno Barony

The 2025 Hennessy Cypher featured female rappers for the first time in the event’s history, with Kenya’s Femi One and UK rapper Ms Banks on the lineup. Ghana has a female rapper who beat Sarkodie, Medikal, Strongman, Amerado, and Joey B at the VGMA in 2021 to win Best Rapper.

Eno Barony has been the most credentialed female rapper in Ghana since she first appeared in 2014. She won Afrimma Best Female Rap Act in 2020 and the Ghana Music Award USA Best Rapper. She has said publicly that male rappers challenge her specifically because they recognise her as the standard to beat. Whether that reads as self-promotion or accurate accounting depends on the trophies. The trophies support the accounting.

If the Hennessy Cypher continues to expand its format to include female voices, Eno Barony is Ghana’s strongest candidate by any measure. She is from Tema. She has the technical ability. She has the competitive record. The only reason she has not been on the cypher yet is timing, not capability.

Strongman

Nana Sei, known as Strongman Burner, won three consecutive rap competitions between 2010 and 2012 before he had released a formal project. He spent two years at Sarkcess Music, left in 2019, and founded Strong Empire, his own label. His 2022 EP Buokrom Boy and his album 10 AM demonstrated a lyrical range that his competition-circuit origins have never left him.

His rap beef with Medikal in 2019, triggered by the VGMA Best Rapper result, produced some of the most technically demanding diss material Ghana’s hip-hop scene has generated in the last decade. The two have since reconciled and collaborated. What that period established was that Strongman operates at his highest level when the pressure is highest. A cypher, by definition, is a high-pressure environment.

Medikal

Samuel Adu Frimpong, known as Medikal, won four awards at the 2026 TGMA, including Most Popular Song of the Year. He is the most commercially dominant rapper in Ghana at this moment. His collaborations reach audiences that more strictly lyrical rappers in the same market cannot access.

The argument against Medikal on the Hennessy Cypher is that the format rewards technical verse construction more than commercial appeal. The argument for him is that the 2026 TGMA result reflects genuine dominance that cannot be dismissed, and that commercial success at the scale he has achieved in Ghana requires a kind of rap intelligence that does not always show up in competition-circuit credentials.

Whether the Hennessy selectors value his specific strengths is a separate question from whether those strengths are real. They are real.

The Broader Point

The conversation about who should follow Kwesi Arthur on the Hennessy Cypher is only possible because Ghana’s rap roster is wide enough to sustain it. Four credible, distinct candidates at different career stages, from different cities, representing different schools of Ghanaian rap, is not something every African country can produce on demand. Ghana can, and the Hennessy Cypher’s annual picks have been, across four editions, a direct expression of that depth.