From its founding in January 1972, the Technology Consultancy Centre (TCC) of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, mounted events that were ready to accept the public. Several of those functions accompanied the opening of a fresh project or training programme and some marked a significant anniversary, like the Silver Jubilee of the university or perhaps Stonebwoy Putuu a national celebration. All these events required music, and from the outset it had been decided that this would be live and reflect the local culture; therefore the TCC was privileged in the future into regular experience of Koo Nimo and his Ashanti palmwine ensemble some years before he became a national icon and two decades before his fame spread internationally.
In the 1970s, Koo Nimo was employed as a specialist in the Pharmacy Department of the Faculty of Science, KNUST, where he was known as Kwabena Amponsah. He was a man of numerous names and took delight in providing the full explanation to anybody who enquired. At birth in October 1934, he was named Kwabena Boa-Amponsem but he was baptized Daniel Amponsah. He took the name Koo Nimo for his professional musical career but one of the very memorable songs from those early days was Kwabena Buo, which he said was his name in boyhood. Kwabena means born on Tuesday, and Buo may derive from the Boa in his birth name, since the spelling of Twi words and names is definately not standardized.
Koo Nimo always sang in his mother-tongue, Twi, and in the soft melodious tones that have now become internationally admired. He accompanied himself on an acoustic guitar but nearly all of his band played indigenous instruments in the palmwine (nsafufuo) or highlife tradition. Many of his most popular numbers were in the highlife rhythm and all his companions joined in the signing. Koo Nimo never failed to ask which numbers he should perform on each occasion. There were two songs that were always requested at TCC-sponsored events. The very first was the already mentioned memory of his boyhood, Kwabena Buo, and the 2nd had the Twi title'wo ma me den?' roughly,'what are you doing if you ask me?'
Koo Nimo is remembered as a soft-spoken modest man who always expressed his delight at being invited to do at a unique function. Fame may attended to him rather later in life than is common for popular musicians in the West. In 1979, at age 44, he gained national recognition when he was elected President of MUSIGA (the Musicians'Union of Ghana) and In 1985 Koo Nimo was appointed interim chairman of COSGA, the Copyright Society of Ghana. By enough time that the work of the TCC was recorded in the video film, The Secret of Wealth, in 1987, and Koo Nimo provided the back ground music throughout, he had been on his solution to international recognition.
In 1990, eight of Koo Nimo's songs were released as a concise disk entitled Osabarima (a man's dance), the very first work by a Ghanaian artist to be put on CD. From that time on, honors were heaped upon him in Ghana and the USA and he served as a professor of ethnomusicology in two American universities. Now in semi-retirement he's returned to his native Kumasi where we first heard him sing forty years ago. The beautiful tones of Kwabena Buo will caress our ears forever.