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GuiltyBeatZ VibeZ

If you have danced to anything out of Accra in the last ten years, you have probably danced to GuiltyBeatz without knowing his name. Forty-seven tracks of a producer's fingerprints — and the fingerprints turn out to be the melody.

The Ghanaian producer who made Afrobeats swing

Ronald Banful, who records as GuiltyBeatz, is a Ghanaian producer and DJ whose sound sits at the crossroads where Ghanaian highlife, Nigerian Afrobeats, amapiano and UK dance music all meet. He came up producing for Mr Eazi — the Banku Music partnership is where a lot of listeners first heard him — and his breakout as a name in his own right came with "Akwaaba," the 2018 track with Mr Eazi, Patapaa and Pappy Kojo that spawned a dance craze and became one of the defining African club records of its year.

His reputation went global when he worked on Beyoncé's The Lion King: The Gift, but the more interesting story is the consistency. A GuiltyBeatz beat is usually identifiable within eight bars: bright, melodic, unhurried, built on a percussion bed that leaves space rather than filling it. He is a producer who trusts the groove to do the persuading.

What to listen for

The playlist works as a map of his range. "Akwaaba" and "Pilolo" (with Kwesi Arthur and Mr Eazi) are the Ghanaian club canon. "All of This" pairs him with Jorja Smith and shows how easily his production absorbs a British soul voice. "Dilemma" with Stefflon Don and Sidhu Moose Wala reaches toward Punjabi pop, and "Up Inna" throws him in with M.I.A., Cadenza, BEAM, Cham and Alicai Harley for a dancehall pile-up.

Pay particular attention to the collaborations with newer West African voices: "No Love" with Joeboy, "Uthando" with Nonso Amadi, "All My Love" with Oxlade and KiDi, and "IYABO" with Falz and Joey B. These are the tracks where you can hear him producing for a singer rather than around one — leaving air, dropping the percussion out under a vocal line, then bringing it back exactly where your body expects it.

The amapiano-leaning cuts near the back — "2000" with Smallgod, Major League DJz and Uncle Vinny — are worth staying for. They show a producer who has followed the continent's rhythms as they shifted, rather than defending the sound that made him.

Forty-seven tracks is a lot. It is also roughly what it takes to demonstrate that one man has been quietly shaping the sound of a region.

Go deeper

The obvious next stop is Mr Eazi's Life Is Eazi mixtapes, where the GuiltyBeatz partnership is at its most concentrated and the Banku Music aesthetic — Ghanaian highlife melody over Nigerian rhythm — is spelled out most clearly.

For the wider Ghanaian producer scene, Juls is the essential companion listen: a similar instinct for space and melody, a slightly softer touch. Kwesi Arthur and King Promise are the vocalists who best show what Accra's writers do with these beats.

And if the amapiano-leaning end of this playlist grabbed you, follow Major League DJz backwards. Their Amapiano Balcony Mix series is the single best archive of how that sound crossed from Johannesburg into West Africa and back again.

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