Co-founder of Afrochella on moving back to Africa to build one of the largest music festivals

Meet Kennedy Agyapong Jr. He is the co-founder of Culture Management Brand, a branding and advertising company behind the popular Afro-cultural festival called Afrochella.

Ken, as he is affectionately called, was born and raised in the United States but moved to Ghana in 2014 and has never looked back.  

“My decision to move to Ghana is always interesting …,” he told Face2Face Africa. “After graduate school in May 2014, I met a classmate from China and they said they moved to Ghana and I was wondering ‘why are they coming to Ghana’ and they were like ‘their parents are here [Ghana].

“And this was even their first time. They couldn’t speak the language, even their English wasn’t that good. So I was like ‘wow, that doesn’t make sense so let me come with them.’”

Wondering why a foreigner would want to live in Ghana influenced him to pack his bag and baggage and relocate permanently to Ghana. Although Ken has now fully integrated, his first two years in Ghana were really challenging.

He told Face2Face Africa that he moved to Ghana at a time when the country was going through an excruciating power crisis, something he was not used to while growing up in America.

“I will call my mom in America, call some of my siblings in America and go like ‘I can’t stay here, I am leaving. But they kept pushing me to stay and it is good that I listened to their advice,” he recalled. In the long run, he said he found the decision to stay useful.

Also, he did not understand the work ethics of Ghanaians and how things work in the country. “I am from New York,” he said about Ghana’s lackluster work culture. “Everything works fast but in Ghana, everyone is dragging the feat.”

Ken was born into a family of entrepreneurs. His father, Kennedy Ohene Agyepong, is a well-known Ghanaian politician and businessman. When he first moved to Ghana, he took over the management of his father’s media empire as CEO.

However, he created his own side hustle, resulting in the co-founding of Afrochella which has been running for six years now. According to him, the first two years of the music festival were a flop. Nonetheless, he and his team did not slow down in their quest to create Africa’s biggest music festival. Hard work, they say, pays.