New Ghanaian music!

In this blog post I would like to recommend listening to the Ghanaians in FOKN Bois, and especially the song "Wo Nim Mi". Read more about them here.

Gandhi statue removed in Ghana

A statue of Mahatma Gandhi has been removed at a university in Ghana. The reason is that people are complaining that Gandhi was racist towards Africans.

Gandhi lived for a long time in South Africa and it is at this time people say Gandhi showed what he really felt about Africans. Find out more about this topic here and some more about Gandhi here.

Time for the Women´s African Cup of Nations!

On saturday it´s time for the Women´s Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana. Eight teams will compete for the honour of calling themselves the best national team on the continent. The final will be played on december 1. The top three teams advance to the World cup next year.

The eight teams are divided into two groups.
Group A
Ghana, Algeria, Mali, Cameroon
Group B
Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Equatorial Guinea

Nigeria are defending champions and have won the competion ten times! Only Equatorial Guinea has also managed to win the tournament (two times). One of the most shining star players of this year´s tournament is Asisat Oshoala who has been named Africa´s best player multiple times.

African contributions to the Swedish champions

Today the football championship in my home country Sweden was decided. Stockholm team AIK finished first in the table and there were a few African contributions to this league victory.

Ghanaian Enoch Kofi Adu was an integral part of the team´s performance and played nearly every game as a midfielder.
Congolese-born Swedish winger Heradi Rashidi scored one goal during the season.
Swedish player Henok Goitom, who is of Eritrean descent and has played for the Eritrea national team, contributed a lot by scoring twelve goals.

Legendary African goalkeepers

When thinking about footballers from Africa, it´s often the offensive qualities that comes to mind. Players like George Weah, Samuel Eto´o, Didier Drogba and Mohamed Salah have all given rise to that picture of the continent. But Africa has also produced some great goalkeepers that should be mentioned.

Arthur Wharton

Born in Accra in Ghana in 1865, the goalkeeper Arthur Wharton was to become the first black professional footballer in the UK. Not only that, this very talented athete also set a record in cycling and became the fastest man in Britain.

The Cameroonian goalkeeper factory

In the modern era, Cameroon has undoubtedly produced most of the high class goalkeepers in Africa. One such figure is Thomas N´kono who cotnributed to Cameroon´s quarter final place in the World cup 1990 and had a notable career with Espanyol in Spain. Actually, Gianluigi Buffon was very much inspired to become a goalkeeper after watching Nkono in the World cup. Other notable keepers from Cameroon include Joseph-Antoine Bell, Jacques Songo´o and Carlos Kameni.

Essam El Hadary

At 45 years old, the Egyptian became the oldest World cup player in history in 2018. He is a legend in his home country and has won the Africa cup of nations four times and the African champions league four times.

Do you know anyone that should be mentioned in this list?

Ebo Taylor the entertainer

In this blog I will occasionally give some names of African musicians and bands that I think is worth listening to. I am a big musiv fan, so this will probabl be one of my favurite parts about running this blog.

So let´s kick start with one of my absolute favourites. Ebo Taylor from Ghana (born in 1936) has had a long career in music and mixes afrobeat, highlife and other genres. I watched him myself in a concert in Stockholm in the club Fasching a couple of years ago. And I have to tell you, it´s impossible not to fell the rhytms in his music and just dance. Watching Ebo Taylor live is probably one of my all time greatest music experiences. The energy level Ebo Taylor and his band created that night is very hard to reach for any musician - in the world.

Kofi Annan passes away

Today it was announced that former UN secretery general Kofi Annan has passed away at the age of 80. He was probably one of the most well known Africans in the world. Besides leading the UN for several years, the ghanaian was also given the Nobel peace prize in 2001.

BBC has written a comprehensive article about Kofi Annan´s life.