“I’m the first and only Ghanaian to produce a movie starring Daddy Lumba,” LilWin has said.
He explained, however, that “the movie could not be released”.
The actor and producer spoke on Ayekoo Ayekoo with Nana Romeo on Accra 100.5 FM, on Monday, May 13, 2024.
According to LilWin, the movie was not released because Daddy Lumba “said he did not look his best”.
“Kwadwo, you know women love me. I am not looking good in this movie. Let’s start all over again,” LilWin, born Kwadwo Nkansah, recalled Daddy Lumba’s words.
He said he explained to Lumba the looks corresponded with the character he was playing but that did not convince him.
LilWin revealed there were more music stars in the movie including Amakye Dede, Ampong, and Kofi Nti.
“It was through this movie that Ampong met Daddy Lumba,” he said, recalling Daddy Lumba stated he would collaborate with Ampong during the time.
“It’s been about 8 years since. I love Daddy Lumba,” he noted, indicating what occasioned the movie was Daddy Lumba called him to express his admiration for his work, and asked them to work on a movie.
He said he wasted no time after the call, explaining: “It’s like Rick Ross, Sarkodie, Stonebwoy, Shatta Wale, asking me to collaborate on a song, I’d be ready first thing in the morning.”
The entrepreneur and Kumawood star remembered the Highlife icon Daddy Lumba “did not charge me anything” but rather “gifted me GHS8,000 a couple of times” and financially supported the movie.
“We also performed together at a thanksgiving show at Miklin Hotel,” he added. “He gave me more than GHS10,000 after, and we returned to the movie.”
Pinpointing the period this happened in, he said Daddy Lumba’s Nea Wo Ho Beto Wo had been released and “that was the song we used as the movie's soundtrack”.
LilWin went on to say that before the movie came out, however, Daddy Lumba asked to review it.
“I gave him a preview copy. He said he wanted to make sure he liked what was captured and nothing unpleasant would be released,” LilWin explained, revealing, also, Lumba “was my rich son in the movie, and we helped a lot of people who later were ungrateful”.
He said he anticipated selling “20,000 copies” in a blink after release, but “the next day, I had a call. Daddy Lumba said: ‘Kwadwo, I like the movie but I was not looking good’. I explained to him that’s how it was to be because he would experience hardship [at a point], but he said we should redo the movie”.
LilWin intimated he was pained, and even though he had toiled to produce the movie, he did not release it because “I didn’t want to disrespect someone who had been kind to me, someone I love, a legend whose music I love”.
“Even if I had paid him for the role, I wouldn’t have released it still, and this is why the movie was never released,” he said.
A comic star, he joked he once considered taking the master copy of the movie to Daddy Lumba to ask him to “buy it and watch it at his leisure – it was a beautiful movie – Ampong was our pastor”.