‘Too Much Music’ documentary to examine Ghanaian keyboardist Kiki Gyan’s life and who shapes artists’ stories

A new documentary project titled “Too Much Music” will focus on Ghanaian keyboardist Kiki Gyan and on the control of artists’ narratives, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter. The film is directed by Aseye Fiagbe, who said the documentary began with a personal frustration about what his own relationship to music could tell him, versus what he later learned about the life behind the sound.

Fiagbe grew up with Gyan’s music through the band Osibis, building an early familiarity with the artist and the community around him. In that account, the documentary’s central emotional starting point is the limit of what Fiagbe knew about Gyan himself, particularly after Gyan’s death. Fiagbe has been quoted as saying that, as he understood it, he was left with only knowledge of how Gyan died, rather than a fuller portrait of his life.

The reported motivation for the documentary is tied to the question of who gets to frame an artist’s story. Fiagbe has described being bothered by that gap, and the film’s concept is framed as an exploration of narrative authority, including who speaks for an artist and what information survives in public memory. The project, as presented in the report, uses Gyan’s life as the entry point, while using the surrounding discourse to examine control over legacy.

The Hollywood Reporter’s coverage places the documentary in connection with the Locarno Open Doors initiative, which supports selected projects tied to the Locarno Film Festival ecosystem. In that context, “Too Much Music” is being positioned as an industry-facing project, with development and visibility tied to the Open Doors program rather than as a completed release in the report’s description.

The report also indicates that “Too Much Music” is designed around Fiagbe’s long-term engagement with the music and the people around it. By returning to early experiences in which the sound was present, Fiagbe’s approach appears aimed at filling in a narrative that he says was not adequately explained, particularly to younger listeners and those who knew the music without knowing the man. The documentary’s framing of “who controls artists’ narratives” functions, in this account, as both theme and method.

As of the report’s publication on Aug. 16, 2026, the documentary was described as a project connected to the Locarno Open Doors pathway, indicating a development or early presentation stage rather than a fully released film with a detailed distribution plan. Additional production and release information, beyond the project’s concept, director, and development context, was not provided in the report’s summary.

For audiences, the immediate practical outcome is a new documentary premise entering the film-development pipeline, with its subject and narrative concerns drawn from Ghanaian music history and the stakes of legacy. For filmmakers and industry observers, the project indicates continued investment in personal, place-based storytelling that also examines the information structures that determine how cultural figures are remembered. The next steps will depend on the program’s progression for the project toward completion and broader exhibition.