Kofi Kingston's mother spills the beans on his true background

Kofi Kingston (a/k/a Kofi Sarkodie-Mesah) tried to tell the BBC that he truly is from Jamaica. ""I was actually born in Jamaica—to be honest with a name like Kofi a lot of people assume I was born in Ghana," he said. The interviewer noted that Kingston made the claim "with a bad Jamaican accent" and did his "best to stay in character."

However, Kingston's own mother let the cat out of the bag. "I told him: 'Kofi, your cousins watch you on TV in Ghana and want to know why you don't say you're from Ghana,'" she said. "He said: 'Tell them it's business.'" The story also notes that Kingston banned his mother and family members from speaking to the media. To read the full story, visit BBC.co.uk.

Powell’s POV: The debate over his heritage is rather comical, but there are some interesting items in the story regarding Kofi's background. His grandfather was a revered teacher, his mother is the head of the Ghanaian-American organization, and his father is a lecturer at Boston College. Although he was born in Ghana in 1982, Kingston's family moved to the United States later that year.