Ghanaian-born artist Kookusi closes a significant chapter of his career with “Phase V,” a two-track project featuring “IDK” and “Ten Toes.” The release concludes a five-year creative framework that has followed his journey from pharmacy school in Ghana to completing a PhD in Neuroscience and Pharmacology in the United States.
For Kookusi, music and science have never existed in separate worlds. His “Phase” series has allowed him to document both simultaneously, turning each year into a record of academic milestones, personal experiences, artistic growth, and questions about human behaviour.
“Phase V” arrives as Kookusi completes his doctorate and potentially marks the final chapter of the framework.
The story began with Phase I during his pharmacy school years in Ghana. Before the “Phase” concept took shape, Kookusi gained attention through the viral “Second-hand Dreams” freestyle, which became widely known as the “Uber driver freestyle.” The freestyle introduced audiences to his writing and established the foundation for an artist whose work would increasingly blur the boundaries between intellect, vulnerability, and music.
Phase II followed his move to the United States and the beginning of his PhD at UNT Health. Alongside his academic pursuits, Kookusi released his debut EP, “5foot3,” establishing himself as a sharp lyricist with an ability to explore vulnerability and identity through music. His academic achievements during the period included receiving the Thomas and Elena Yorio Award for Outstanding First-Year PhD Student, while his “Clean and Pure” submission further drew attention from Ghana’s music industry.
By Phase III, Kookusi was confronting the realities of balancing two demanding careers. His EP “Greetings from Abroad” explored the fear of failure and the emotional weight of trying to succeed across different worlds. “Greatest Fear,” featuring Arathejay, became one of the project’s most direct moments, offering an unfiltered look at the uncertainty beneath his ambition.
That period also saw Kookusi defend his PhD proposal, which focused on research into the non-brain effects of nicotine in addiction.
Phase IV pushed the connection between his research and his music even further. Through “Addicts Anonymous,” a collaboration with Ghanaian lawyer and rapper RBD, Kookusi examined addiction from a broader perspective, challenging the stigma often attached to the subject.
Away from music, he advanced to PhD candidacy and received an American Heart Association pre-doctoral fellowship supporting his nicotine research.
The Uncertainty Behind “Phase V”
The road toward Phase V proved to be Kookusi’s most uncertain yet. Failed experiments, shifting circumstances, pressure across both careers, and questions surrounding the completion of his doctorate created a period in which certainty was difficult to find.
His contribution to Worlasi’s VIMH challenge became one of his most widely heard moments during this period. Yet despite its public reception, Kookusi has described the verse as something closer to a private letter to himself than a performance designed for attention.
Phase V began with “This Ability,” an ambitious multidisciplinary project that brought together choral music, rap, poetry, journalism, and film to tell the story of Emmanuel Eckow Clock Amoako, a Ghanaian athlete born with a limb defect who became an important figure in Ghanaian basketball.
The project was later accepted into the EU-funded CARE art-for-mental-health catalogue and is now used as teaching material in classrooms.
Still, recognition did not eliminate the uncertainty surrounding Kookusi’s final year of doctoral study. Questions about publications, graduation, and what would come next continued to shape his thinking, with some of those emotions finding their way into his feature verse on Obeng King’s “Say a Prayer.”
Those questions now sit at the centre of “Phase V.”
“IDK” confronts the uncertainty directly, reflecting the state of mind that accompanied Kookusi through the final stretch of his doctorate. “Ten Toes,” meanwhile, offers a different piece of the timeline. Originally written as a freestyle at the end of Phase IV, the track finally finds its place within this closing project.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 has also served as a grounding influence throughout the project, reinforcing the themes of timing, uncertainty, and trust that run through this stage of Kookusi’s journey.
With the doctorate complete, Kookusi has yet to confirm whether another “Phase” will follow. For now, “Phase V” stands as the conclusion of a framework that has documented an unusual intersection of scientific research and artistic expression.
More than a timeline of releases, the series has become a reflection of Kookusi himself: a scientist examining human behaviour in the laboratory and an artist exploring many of those same questions through music.
