Billboard African Rookie of the Month Gyakie Says Releasing Her Debut Album ‘After Midnight’ After Three Years ‘Felt Like a Dream Come True’

While Gyakie is affectionately known as the “Songbird” for her sweet melodies, she might identify more closely with a night owl. Ever since she started making music in 2019 with her reggae-tinged debut single “Love Is Pretty,” Gyakie (real name Jackline Acheampong) discovered that music flowed freely out of her in the moonlight hours.

“Anytime I had studio sessions in the evenings, I got very creative. I’m able to get the perfect lyrics. I’m able to imagine the kind of things I want to say and I’m able to do it well,” she tells Billboard.

Whether she was recording in the U.K., Nigeria or Ghana, those intimate, candlelit studio sessions created a serene environment for Gyakie to make her debut album, aptly titled After Midnight. She details different matters of the heart, like expressing adoration on the titular interlude but also debating going back to an ex if her current lover doesn’t treat her right on the lead single “sankofa,” named after the mythical backwards-facing bird symbol from the Akan tribe. And she further expands the borders of her Afro-fusion sound on the album, from the traditional drums from her native Ashanti region of Ghana on the “intro” to the sweeping string arrangement on the invigorating gospel closer “hallelujah.” “When you’re listening to it, you can see that it starts from the very soulful songs and then it builds up gradually and then it goes back to the soulful songs. That is really how my life and my entire artistry is,” she explains.

From American R&B icons like Nina Simone and Teddy Pendergrass to Ghanaian highlife legends like her own father, Nana Acheampong, and Gyedu-Blay Ambolley, she was surrounded by music that spoke to one’s soul. Little Gyakie and her younger brother Justin posed with studio headphones alongside their father in a booth for the cover of her 2020 debut EP Seed, where her breakout hit “Forever” was planted: After earning a remix with Omah Lay in 2021, “Forever” reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Top Triller Global chart and Shazam’s Top 200 chart. That year, Gyakie was named the emerging woman of the year at the 3Music Awards, the annual Ghanaian music awards ceremony that later honored her as the woman of the year in 2022, and signed a record deal with RCA Records UK. While the Songbird quickly took flight, Gyakie has kept soaring since.

In the five months surrounding the release of her debut album, Gyakie was featured on Forbes Africa 30 Under 30 list, was named the Spotify EQUAL Africa Ambassador in September and Billboard’s African Rookie of the Month in October. “I view my life as a big room that has so many doors. Everything happening right now is like a new door being opened for me,” she says.

Billboard spoke with Gyakie about juggling her international business degree with her budding musical career, spending three years recording After Midnight and sampling her father’s classic and featuring her favorite rapper on one of its tracks.  

How much did your father’s career path in the music industry impact you to carve out your own?

When I dropped my first EP – the artwork had a picture of me and my dad in the studio – everybody was questioning, “This whole time that’s your dad?!” Whenever I went for interviews, I explained how in the beginning of my career, I never mentioned him because I wanted to do this by myself. After people found out later on, they understood why I have always been passionate about music.

When did you decide for yourself that music wasn’t only a passion but something you were called to do for the rest of your life?

I loved entertainment, I loved music, but I didn’t think I was going to do it as a profession. I [studied] international business, thinking after college I was going to find my way around the corporate world. But after I dropped my first single “Love Is Pretty,” I dropped it thinking it was just going to be one of those demos you just record for fun and send to your friends and family. I started getting really emotional messages from listeners, talking about they want to hear more from me, my voice is very different. The more I got messages from people telling me how the music has connected with their soul, it made me realize that maybe this is my calling. This is what I am supposed to do on earth.   

How did your upbringing in Kumasi, Ghana impact the music you listen to and the music you make?

My lifestyle was from the house, you go to school, from school, you go to church, and then you come back home. One of the reasons was because of my dad – he was checking in all the time, so we really weren’t going anywhere. And Kumasi is very calm and very serene. Because of that, I used to always listen to soulful, calm music. My dad makes highlife. Being in such a space and hearing those kinds of sounds and being in an environment that is very serene, it influenced the kind of artists I was listening to: Sade, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, Teddy Pendergrass, Etta James, a lot of soulful, jazz, R&B music.

How did you actually start making music?

I was on campus in my second year, and I remember bumping into the producer that I work with now [Sosa] through a friend. Out of curiosity, I paid them a visit and saw some microphones and was like, “Oh, are these for studio recordings?” And out of a joke, I was like, “You should send me some beats. I want to make a song.” And [Sosa] actually sent the beats. I remember going to his hostel on campus to record the next day, and that was how the journey began for me.

How did you balance school and music at the same time?

Girl, sometimes I’m like, “How did I even do this?” When I look back now at how everything played out, it makes me appreciate that I was a strong lady, I just didn’t see it in the moment. I would be in class, and right after class, I would need to take the next bus for five hours to Accra for an interview, and I would need to get on the bus back to campus in Kumasi. Sometimes I’ll be studying in school, and when I go back [home], I’ll need to finish a record. It was a lot to the point where I would think, “Maybe I should drop one at the moment.” But I wanted to be able to handle the two at the same time. It was not easy at all because my hit song “Forever” blew up when I was in my third year, about to go into my final year.

Did the thought ever cross your mind to pursue music full time and not see your degree through? 

What stopped that decision from happening was COVID. “Forever” blew up in 2021, and we weren’t allowed to play shows or travel, so I was doing things online. Maybe, if at that time the outside was open and I was moving around, touring with the song, that would have been very tricky for me. With how big the song was, that could have been a thought in my mind.

What kind of sounds and styles does your music encompass? How would you describe your music in your own words?

Everything around my music is directed toward causing a shift in the listeners’ emotions. I always want to say something that will touch something within their emotions [and] play an instrument that will make you remember something emotional, whether happy or sad times or moments they are longing for.

I always say my music is versatile. I could be doing jazz today, then the next day I’m doing highlife, the next day I’m doing hip-hop. But majority of the time, I always love soulful, really calm, relaxing type of music because anytime I’m in the studio, I’m very relaxed, so it’s always reflected in the kind of music I make and the kind of things I talk about.

You’ve said it took three years to make After Midnight. I can imagine that the person you were when you started this album is not the same person who finished this album. What were the biggest changes that you underwent as an artist and as a person?

Patience is one of them. You can put pressure on yourself and try to do anything, or you can have the patience till the words or melodies come to you. That is how I work. Because it was a 17-track album, imagine having creative blocks in and out and you’re supposed to do a song in a day and you’re now using two weeks to do it. Even though I was getting a lot of messages from people about when the album is coming, it made me feel bad sometimes and wanting to just give what I had. But I also wanted to be patient, to be able to do everything that had to be done for the project and everything around it to be a classic.

Another thing I learned was that it’s very normal for you to lose people. I lost some people within this time frame because I kind of lost touch with reality and I was mainly focused on the project. Anybody that wasn’t really trying to understand me in that space, I allowed the person to make a decision that they wanted to make.

You named the album After Midnight because most of the songs were made that late at night/early in the morning. Why did that time create such a prime setting for you to make your project? Have you always been that way when it comes to recording music, or was this something new that you developed around the time that you were making the album?

That has been how I’ve been making music since 2019. I have done sessions in the afternoon, I have done sessions in the evening. When you grow as a person, you study yourself the way people study other people and things and notice changes within them. One of the things I noticed about myself was anytime I had studio sessions in the evenings, I got very creative. I’m able to get the perfect lyrics. I’m able to imagine the kind of things I want to say and I’m able to do it well, compared to when I’m recording during the day. I realized, “When it’s daytime and there are a lot of colors around, there are people moving, I get easily distracted and it delays whatever I’m trying to create.” So I opted for the studio sessions where it’s just me and the producer. And [we’re] in the dark with just a candle. Imagine a setting like that and the kind of music it will inspire you to make.

You’ve identified “no one,” “is it worth it?” and “hallelujah” as the motivational records from the project. Why was it important for your fans to hear those records?

I wrote the lyrics in a way that, if you are not singing the songs and you’re just reading, you would see that this is somebody actually giving you words of inspiration. And these three songs are actually my experiences and how I feel. A song like “no one” is for confidence, a song like “hallelujah” is really inspirational. “Is it worth it?” was me questioning life and the afterlife. These are thoughts that come in my mind. I know that people relate to certain things like that, but they just don’t talk about it. So when they listen to these kind of songs, that’s what makes them connect to the music so much. I know there’s a message in there that’s supposed to go to somebody, and that person will listen to it.

Why did you want to sample the instrumental from your father’s hit “Nanka Ebeye Den” on “y2k luv”?

Because I was making a song with [Omar Sterling], someone that I actually love his music so much, the nostalgia from the name of the track, the production being old school hip-hop, it made sense to sample a record that is also going to give the people that nostalgia. It only made sense for me to sample a record from my dad, and I picked the one that was a classic because “y2k luv” is a classic.

I read your 2021 Teen Vogue interview, and you mentioned that Sterling inspired two songs on your debut EP Seed. Do you remember which songs from Seed?

It was the intro [“Joy and Happiness”] and the outro, which is “The Journey.” Those two songs are where I tested my love for rap, and they came out really good. The inspiration was from Omar Sterling because that is the type of sound and the type of vibe his music leans toward.

Who would you love to collaborate with next?

I would love to work with Dave from the U.K. I think we’d make an amazing record together. That should be at the top of my bucket list. And then if I were to pick one lady, it would be Jorja Smith. Oh my goodness, and Doechii! Doechii, SZA or Jorja Smith would be huge.

What’s been the biggest “pinch me” moment of your career so far?

The day I had to do my album listening in Ghana. I remember looking at the time and seeing it being midnight, the day the album got released. It felt like the gospel that I’ve been putting together has finally been available to the people that I love so much, and that is my fans. It felt unbelievable – finishing this album and having to listen to it over and over, waiting for the day to come, that anticipation. Being able to do this three-year project and it coming out, it felt like a dream come true for me.

What else is next for Gyakie for the rest of the year and in 2026?

There are a lot of music videos coming. I am planning on going on tour. We are going to be doing so much around this project — because it’s 17 songs, and there’s so much that we can do, and so many people that have yet to hear it.