KOD recalls teenage job selling cassettes for Osei Kwame Despite
Long before becoming Director of Diaspora Affairs at the Presidency, Kofi Okyere Darko, widely known as KOD, was just a teenager hustling through secondary school, selling cassettes for one of Ghana’s most iconic entrepreneurs, Osei Kwame Despite.
At the unveiling of Osei Kwame Despite’s auto museum in East Legon on June 1, 2025, KOD opened up about his early brush with the music business, revealing a job that quietly shaped his future in media and entertainment.
“When I was a teenager, I used to sell cassette and I worked from Lumba’s shop and I worked for Despite. That was my secondary school job. My introduction to the music industry and everything, this is part of the story,” he told Ghhyper.
That job, he said, sparked what would become a long career in broadcasting and entertainment, an industry he would later influence both on-air and in executive roles. KOD credited the experience with helping to define his trajectory and form a lasting relationship with Despite.
Their bond, rooted in those early cassette-selling days, has endured over the decades.
KOD also revealed he came close to joining the original team at Peace FM, a major Ghanaian radio station founded by Despite, but had to decline the opportunity due to existing commitments elsewhere.
“When Peace FM was being established, I was one of the quiet voices that was going to start but I was working at Radio Gold so I couldn’t show my face,” he said.
