B2 and Twist, who form Dope Nation, are identical twins, and they’re both award-winning producers, as well as a successful recording duo.
They say working together is like working with yourself – but better.
At university, they made hits for big-name artists and now they have songs with the likes of Shattawale, Joey B, and Olamide.
The twins credit word of mouth for their success.
“Back in school we’d just be in the hall and an artist would pull up, and enter the hall looking for us,” they recall.
“Making beats for these artists and releasing them, we got to understand how our songs would be big if we were artists ourselves.”
They were not wrong.
Their first song Eish, released in 2018, was a hit, and others followed.
In 2022 they released Gboza, a song heavily influenced by the amapiano genre from South Africa. They coined the name Ghanapiano for their sound. A year later, they released a seven-track EP called Ghanapiano.
“Ghanapiano is a musical experiment for us… a new genre fusing amapiano to our Ghanaian high life and hiplife,” they explain.
Dope Nation had the chance to learn from South African DJ and producer Champuru Makhenzo when he visited Ghana.
“He brought his laptop and we were checking out the samples and how he was recording,” the twins tell me.
“You know the Afrobeats bounce is different from the amapiano bounce – amapiano is laid-back – and he was just showing us everything… Like he’s cooking the same type of food but in a different way.”
The two bounced ideas back and forth.
“We also showed him what we could do, and he realised like: ‘You guys are dope’. So it was through that experience we birthed Ghanapiano.”
To hear DJ Edu’s conversation with Dope Nation, listen to This is Africa on BBC World Service radio and partner stations across Africa, and online here: bbcworldservice.com/thisisafrica..
