20 years of golden moments with Radio Gold (part 1)
The biggest and most dominant entertainment news this week has been twofold: Abraham Attah mounting the Oscar stage to present an award and the brouhaha generated from comments by radio presenters Lexis Bill, Jay Foley and MzGee made.
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We should be thankful that all three presenters have conceded to the fact that what they said was in bad taste and apologised to the young man, their listeners and the public. There is nothing much to be said after going through this ritual.
My focus for this week, however, is on Radio Gold. Come next Monday, March 6 the station will be celebrating 20 years of existence and I think it is important that I do an assessment of the station over the years. This is a two-part review of radio Gold’s 20 years from what I can remember over the years.
It seems like yesterday when a man known as Kwesi Sainti Baffoe-Bonnie put together a collection of young men and women to start a radio station at Latebiokorshie. Located near Barnor Junction, Radio Gold would go on to become one of the most influential radio stations in Accra and Ghana.
If my memory serves me right, that team that started included Kwaku Boafo Agyeman (who we had known from GBC TV and GBC FM), Ekow Baidoo (who we knew from the hit television series, Inspector Bediako), B.B. Menson (who we knew from the youthful television entertainment show Smash TV), Eddy Blay (who was a rapper who eventually joined NFL), Kwami Sefa Kayi (the host of the late afternoon show who had done a few programmes at GBC), Yvonne Andoh and others.
It was a very strong team from the onset, but in an era when you had the well-established Joy FM, Groove FM with all their swashbuckling presenters and Vibe FM with their so-called “abrofosem” presenters, it was always going to be a tough early days for Radio Gold.
However, the team that started and those that joined them afterwards ensured that the vision of the founders of the station and the founding General Manager, Baffoe-Bonnie will go on by making sure that their creative abilities were unleashed on listeners.
Some of those who started would leave thereby creating the room for others to come in to blend with those who were left behind to form a formidable team that dominated the airwaves in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
If you were not listening to the Radio Gold of the 1990s and early 2000s, you would assume that it is a station that has always been about politics. But I can tell you that Radio Gold had been a fun station with multi-dimensional content for a long time.
My fondest memories of Radio Gold were during the days when the station did everything differently from all other stations on Wednesdays. That day was set aside for only talk programmes the whole day and thankfully, it was around the time I was out of school and so I spent every Wednesday listening to Radio Gold from morning till midnight.
There was the usual morning show, Kanawu with Sefa Kayi, Kofi Gyan with Fiifi Banson, Ephson’s File with Ben Ephson, Lunch With Kwami with Sefa Kayi, there was another programme before Editor’s Helpline with Sefa Kayi at some point there was Teachers Classroom with Banson and Menson.
It was interesting, it was engaging and if you were addicted to the station on Wednesdays as I was, you were going to realise how difficult it was not to listen if you had to be away from Accra for any reason. Radio Gold’s Wednesday programming was life!
Over the years Radio Gold has produced some of the finest presenters, DJs and interviewers this country has known and no the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the station, it is important that I mention those who in my view have been epochal members of this privileged team.
Kwami Sefa Kayi needs to introduction. In the last 20 years since the liberation of the airwaves, that is, perhaps apart from Komla Dumor, no other presenter comes close to him. He was a very important part of the Radio Gold team both before and after Boafo Agyeman and Baidoo would leave.
He eventually took over the morning show and along with other programmes, he handled it very well and established the brand so well. Also as Programmes Director, he did a lot for the station in the early days. He was humorous, forthright and engaging with his callers and guests. When he left the station it was very painful to them, as it ought to be.
Daryl Ambrose-Nmah, the Liberian refugee who became an integral part of the Radio Gold team of presenters did very well for the station. When Sefa Kayi left, he took over as the host of the morning show and did exceedingly well to drive the station forward. There were issues with his stay and work permit when in 2000 the NPP came to power, leading to him being deported. I think he came back and then left again at some point.
Kofi Okyere Darko has found himself on the hot seat as morning show host. KOD is one person who has done almost everything there was to be done at Radio Gold. He was in the late afternoon show, mid-morning show and pretty much all day-parts until he left in 2015 to Live FM.
James Agyenim Boateng was for a long time the talk part of the morning show on the station. KOD did the music and other content part and he came to do the newspaper review and interview part. With Nana Yaw and Omanhene Kwabena Asante. He was a fantastic interviewer who held no punches when sparring with anyone on his show. He was partnered and succeeded by Alhassan Suhiyini.
The station has produced some of the good mid-morning show presenters this city has known. Patrice Amegashie who used to call himself The Trouble General was one of the top mid-morning presenters of the early days. He took over from Yvonne Andoh and he shot the show up with his good selection of the African music of those days and other hot music.
Another person who has been a very good part of the Radio Gold history who has been a good mid-morning and lunchtime presenter for a long time has been Okyeame. Great radio voice, good diction and a very fantastic sense of music have been the three qualities that characterise Okyeame Badwinba’s presence on radio. The good thing is that he is among the few people who have stayed with the station till today.
Kwesi Anim Adjei, Mikki Osei-Berko and Wofa K have been the big triumvirate when it comes to the late afternoon show on the station. Wofa K has done it for so long, but Mikki set that show on fire with his performance before leaving for Happy FM.
@TheGhMediaGuru
