IShowSpeed Joins Obama-Backed “The Eyes Of Ghana” As Producer

IShowSpeed joined “The Eyes Of Ghana” as a producer, helping promote the Obama-backed film’s one-night theater release to his audience.

Breakwater Studios and Higher Ground announced the new partnership earlier this week. The streamer shared the trailer for the October 28, 2026, event across the United States and Canada. He received a producer credit under Darren Watkins, while Barack and Michelle Obama served as executive producers.

The new film credit extended his media work beyond livestreaming. He had also bought a Miami-area warehouse to build a content studio.

Director Ben Proudfoot’s film centers on Chris Hesse, the Ghanaian cameraman who filmed his country’s independence and kept its images safe for decades. Hesse worked for Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president. After Nkrumah’s overthrow in 1966, he protected more than 1,300 reels that recorded African independence and visits by world leaders.

“I’m humbled by his legacy and proud to help bring his story to my community,” Speed said of Hesse in the announcement.

The film had screened at festivals in 2025. Speed’s new role put his reach behind this year’s theater push.

The work went well beyond the footage that reached the screen. Earlier this year, Proudfoot told Ghana’s national broadcaster, GBC, that the film used about 15 minutes from the archive. He estimated that more than 300 hours of original negatives remained in a London vault.

Proudfoot warned that age and chemical decay threatened the footage. He called on government bodies, cultural groups and international partners to help save it.

Filmmaker Anita Afonu explained why she wanted the images back in Ghana.

“Our work is to bring them home to the people they belong to, and home is Ghana,” she told The Produced.

The negatives had gone to London because Ghana lacked the facilities to store them, Afonu said. She wanted people in Ghana to have digital copies. As a film student, she had studied European, Soviet and Hollywood work while films by earlier Ghanaian directors stayed out of reach.

The documentary also follows the restoration of Accra’s Rex Theater as a place to show Hesse’s work. Afonu told the Hawai‘i International Film Festival that she hoped the film’s success would draw support for the full archive.