Ghanaian Presidential Staffer,Rex Owusu Marfo and highlife legend, popularly known as Rex Omar, is taking Ghana’s Black Star Experience message in music, culture and creative tourism to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he will participate as a panellist at the second edition of the World Music and Tourism Festival in Kinshasa.
The festival, scheduled for October 8 to 10, 2026, is being organised under the theme “Tourism and Music: Building Bridges Between Peoples”, bringing together government officials, tourism and cultural industry stakeholders, artists, academics and international organisations to examine the relationship between music, culture, tourism and development. The programme identifies the promotion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a tourism and cultural destination as one of its strategic focuses.
Rex Omar, who serves as the Coordinator of the Black Star Experience Secretariat at the Office of the President of Ghana, has been invited by the Congolese Minister of Tourism, H.E. Didier Mazenga Mukanzu, to contribute to the festival’s international forum on tourism, culture, investment and creative industries. He will participate in the opening panel on October 9, titled “Music, Heritage and Tourism: Turning Living Cultural Heritage into Sustainable Tourism Experiences.”
The panel is particularly relevant to Rex Omar’s current work in Ghana, where his responsibilities place him at the intersection of culture, creativity, tourism and national development. The discussion will examine issues including musical heritage and destination identity, the attractiveness of culture to tourists, the enhancement of intangible heritage, the role of artists and communities, and the contribution of cultural tourism to local development.
He will share the panel with senior cultural and academic figures from the DRC and representatives connected to UNESCO and the Central African Cultural and Arts Centre, including Mr BALUFU BAKUPA KANYINDA, Director General, Central African Cultural and Arts Centre (CCAPAC), Prof. Théodore NGANZI NDONI, National Institute of Arts, Ms Carole KAYUM FOKOUE, Associate Project Officer / Regional Focal Point for Cultural and Arts Education, Culture Programme, UNESCO Regional Office for Central Africa, Yaoundé, Cameroon, and Prof. Bruno LAPIKA DIMONFU, University of Kinshasa. The session will be moderated by Lydia Bebe Kum, Programme Officer in the Regional Department for Africa at UN Tourism.
For Rex Omar, the discussion represents a natural extension of a career that has moved between the creative stage and the policy arena. Long before his public-sector role, he established himself as one of Ghana’s recognised highlife musicians, as a member of the celebrated group Nakorex and as a successful solo performer. His music, including the widely known Abiba, helped reinforce the position of Ghanaian highlife as both a cultural expression and a vehicle for connecting Ghana with audiences beyond its borders.
That experience gives his contribution to the Kinshasa discussion a distinctive dimension. The question of how African countries can transform living cultural heritage into sustainable tourism experiences is not simply a policy issue for governments. It involves artists, traditional custodians, communities, creative entrepreneurs, tourism operators and destination marketers. Music can provide the emotional connection that makes a destination memorable, while festivals, performances, culinary traditions, fashion, storytelling and heritage sites can turn that connection into experiences that visitors are willing to travel for and pay for.
Ghana’s Black Star Experience provides an emerging national framework within which these connections can be developed more deliberately. The broader ambition is to move beyond presenting culture as entertainment and instead treat the country’s creative and cultural assets as part of a destination proposition capable of generating economic value, strengthening national identity and opening international markets. Rex Omar’s presence in Kinshasa therefore offers an opportunity to place Ghana’s evolving thinking within a wider African conversation about cultural economies and tourism.
The timing is also significant for the DRC. The festival’s programme goes beyond musical performances to include discussions on destination branding, creative industries, youth employment, digitalisation, international cooperation and investment in tourism and cultural industries. A second panel, immediately following Rex Omar’s session, will examine how destinations can use creativity and cultural industries to build competitive and attractive international images.
The festival itself reflects the organisers’ intention to connect dialogue with practical destination promotion. Alongside the conference sessions, the programme includes a Cultural and Tourism Village featuring Congolese fashion, gastronomy, art and music, a Grand Village of Destinations showcasing tourism sites, circuits, heritage, handicrafts, gastronomy and investment opportunities, as well as performances by Congolese and international artists. Participants will also be offered tourism circuits exploring Kinshasa, the Congo River, historical and cultural sites and the Local Rumba Route.
For Ghana, Rex Omar’s participation is therefore more than the appearance of a celebrated musician at an international festival. It places Ghana’s creative economy and its emerging approach to cultural tourism in a continental forum where African destinations are increasingly looking at ways to turn culture into sustainable economic opportunity.
His contribution is also likely to reinforce one of the central ideas behind the Black Star Experience: that Ghana’s music, heritage and creativity should not only be preserved and celebrated, but actively packaged, promoted and connected to tourism, investment and international audiences.
In Kinshasa, one of Africa’s great music capitals, a Ghanaian highlife veteran who has moved from the stage into national creative-industry leadership will be making the case for precisely that connection – that Africa’s living cultural heritage can become one of the continent’s most powerful tourism assets when its people, stories, music and traditions are given the structures and markets to thrive.
Francis Doku is a Ghanaian media executive, journalist, and strategic communications consultant with over 25 years of experience across media, marketing, tourism, and destination development. He is the Founder and CEO of Maestro Africa Group, Publisher of Africa Meets Magazine, Host of the Africa Rising Podcast, West Africa Regional Director for Africa Tourism Partners, and a Consulting Editor for VoyagesAfriq, writing extensively on African tourism, culture, and international relations.
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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
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