The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

Maximus Ojah writes ---- Hello Osagyefo, It's been a week since we celebrated your 100th birthday. It's been ages since I last wrote to you. Coincidentally, my last letter was about your birthday and the debate about the Founder's Day celebration and holiday. No one listened to my suggestion and you were celebrated (alone) on your centenary with good measure. Everyone was talking about you, including the folks at Ghanablogging.com . How did you spend the day? Reflect on your regrets and achievements. Kwame, I find myself regretting way too much in my life these days. If it will make me grow old quicker than I want, please warn me. I am already worried about my age, but let's leave that for another day. What I want to know is, were you a little lucky to be born in 1909? In essence, were you a little lucky to be Ghana's first president instead of its 4th? Is there a little luck involved in creating and leaving a legacy? I will like to argue so. I am really enjoying m...

I watched a documentary called "Living the Hiplife" recently and hearing them play Reggie Rockstone's Visa made me feel nostalgic. I was at a Stanford Library borrowing movies and had searched for "the Godfather". This documentary came up in my search because the summary included the Godfather of Hiplife (aka Hiplife Grandpapa aka Ɔboɔba Reggie Rock aka Oseikrom President aka Reggie Rockstone). Anyway, listening to Visa and a couple other songs have made to write this blog post. I'll be sharing 10 hiplife songs I think you should definitely know about. They were either groundbreaking, popular, interesting or inspirational. Before that, you have to check out my 10 favorite Ghanaian songs of 2009 , my 10 songs dedicated to African women , my favorite Ghanaian songs , 10 favorite songs from Kenya , 10 favorite songs from South Africa , my 10 favorite Nigerian songs and 10 African songs I think you should know about. I hope you feel the songs are worth the tr...

Today is the 100th birthday of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. He's being honoured in Ghana with September 21 instituted as Founder's Day, a national holiday. Many people travelled to Ghana to celebrate his centenary. I wanted to take this opportunity to honour Ghana's founding father and remember him once again. I don't really have much to say about Nkrumah today, but I will talk about him later on. So I'll use this blog to recap a bunch of recent Nkrumah related blog posts. Concerning the Founder's Day debate, I blogged about it here through one of my pseudonyms, Maximus Ojah. Read about it here . In fact, if you've heard of the Lettas to Osagyefo, I am the one who writes them. Yes. You can see the whole bunch here . GhanaBlogging.com has an Nkrumah theme so a lot of Ghanaians have been talking about Osagyefo. My friend, Edward Tagoe has been blogging a bit about Nkrumah recently. He mentions moving Nkrumah's remains from the Mausoleum to Nkroful . It will...

After my last blog post on Ghana's Black Stars, the issue of nicknames for our national team players came up. With the help of Ghanaweb Soccer forum's Mamamia, we have a bunch of nicknames. We can always make up new ones though. Was thinking I'd add a few more details about the various players. Let's learn a little more about our squad. Michael Essien - Essien is known as the Bison. I believe this is from his time at Lyon (France) where he was known for his tireless running and work-rate. Essien is one of the best midfielders in the world and it's great to have in our team. Did you know he's dating Nadia Buari, one of Ghana's most premier actresses? She's the lady who played the Beyonce character in Beyonce, the President's Daughter, which is arguably the most popular African movie of all time. That's one celebrity couple. Richard Kingston - Olele. I am not sure why he is called Olele. Is that a Ga name? Anyone know what that means. Matthew Amoah...

Last time, I took you through my top 10 Ghanaian songs of 2009. Well, I listen to a whole bunch of stuff from across the continent and want to share my African top 10. These are the songs that should be gunning for the awards and ruling the dancefloors. What do I know huh? :-) I know these jams are lekker and am pretty crazy about them. One song I am not adding to this list but is poised to join the list by the end of this year is P-Square's newest single called Danger. Yes, Do me & Ifunanya are officially old now. The Okoye brothers say wahala dey. These P-Square jams just grow on you. Ladies and gentlemen, I dey see danger; You go see danger; Omo, see danger; We dey see danger; Omo wahala dey! Before that, you have to check out my 10 favorite Ghanaian songs of 2009 , my 10 songs dedicated to African women , my favorite Ghanaian songs , 10 favorite songs from Kenya , 10 favorite songs from South Africa , my 10 favorite Nigerian songs and 10 African songs I think you should k...

I know the Old Schools Reunion happened a while ago in Accra recently but it's never late to blog about it. I like the idea of bringing old students of many schools together in one place. There is the nostalgia felt like the old times of Interco n Superzo, reuniting with friends and the sheer entertainment provided as well. I attended the 2004 edition at the Aviation Social Center and it was so much fun. I met a number of friends from Presec and KNUST JSS I hadn't seen in ages. I heard the event was extended to Kumasi a few years' back and that is great too. I had so much fun at the sole event I went to and I was singing jama songs all day, In fact I recorded a video. I recorded a video of Presec colleagues singing 'All my sins shall be taken away'. I had a few other videos that I lost. Bummer. We never said 'Bummer' in Presec. Neither did we say the 'F' word. I say the 'F' word so many times these days, I don't even know how that happene...

As I am typing this entry, I am watching the induction of Michael Jordan into the Basketball Hall of Fame. MJ is the greatest basketball player ever and also one of its biggest winners. MJ was a fierce competitor and cared about winning so much. He didn't mind his individual stats much, he always wanted his team to win. I was thinking about winning and losing yesterday and how much I hated to lose. Then I thought to myself, I think I forget my wins and that my losses are more memorable. Is this common? Are our losses more memorable than our wins? We have seen countless highlights of MJ, draining buzzer-beaters, the flu game, the Dream Team, the Shot, etc. MJ didn't lose much in his career but does he vividly remember when he failed? Michael Jordan never used to win when he first joined the NBA in 1985. When he won his first title in 1991, he had endured years of losing. When he un-retired in 1995, he played and then lost again. This is a quote from a recent ESPN article concern...

Good morning my neighbours! There was a time when Africa's representation in movies was synonymous with 'Coming to America'. The film was shown on tv in Ghana countless times when I was young and yesterday I had the chance to see it again. As I am older now, I watched the movie with more of a critical eye than back then and saw the stereotypes, etc. I am not about to get worked up about Africa's portrayal because I also watched Kenya's Malooned movie which I believe is one of the better African movies I've ever seen. African cinema is coming off age, especially local movies. There are a lot of African films outside the Nollywood circuit and we should begin to watch them. I'll try to share a few of them with you. Malooned is a film by Kenya's Cinematic Studios, produced and directed by Bob Nyanja. I first heard about it through my Kenyan buddy here. I borrowed the DVD from Stanford's library and watched it a second time. For those crying for African f...

Last weekend, Ghana became the first African country to qualify for the World Cup other than the host country, South Africa. It's always nice to set the pace and finish the job with two games to spare. We made our first mundial (Germany 2006) and came away as the best placed African country and doing better than many people thought we would. In fact, at one point during the World Cup, Ghana was the most searched item on Google. If Twitter was as big as it is now, Ghana would be a trending topic too. We'll love to be trendy, but we should want to be winners. We won't sneak up on anyone next time and there's no reason we can't go all the way. We just need to do our homework, prepare adequately and give it our best. Go, Ghana, go! Some critics would say we had an easy qualifying group. We earned whatever favors we got by being one of Africa's 5 best teams. We executed the job well, with four games played, we won all our games and didn't concede any goals. Mali ...