Bentsifi’s Tattle…Guy About Town
Bentsifi’s Tattle…Guy About Town
“Putting Ghana in every detail” – Bozoma wears her history, as she stood to marry!
Aah! Putting Ghana in every detail
So, Badass Boz got married. And, naturally, the Old Guy About Town showed up.
Us Weekly – the US celebrity magazine has gone to town on the story, declaring Bozoma Saint John – Ghanaian-born global marketing powerhouse and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star – a married woman at last, after tying the knot with Keely Watson before nearly 1,000 guests in Accra.
And judging from the pictures, at last was worth the wait! She is now Mrs Bozoma Watson. But what really tickled me was that, for all the international glamour, this was unmistakably Ghana’s party.
“This is Bozoma,” our Tourism Minister Dzifa Gomashie said afterwards. “Putting Ghana into every detail.”
Exactly. That’s Badass Boz for you. She has a way of putting Ghana on the good radar. And goodness, the mileage Ghana has received globally from this woman proudly being Ghanaian wherever she goes is something to behold.
But this time she didn’t merely carry Ghana with her. She wore it. Bozoma’s father is Nzema; her mother is Ahanta. Royal lineage on both sides. So when she stood to marry, she said, “I wore my history.”
And boy, did she! Her Kente was handwoven in Bonwire over four months, thread by thread, carrying Adinkra wisdom. Then came the gold, around her neck, chest, wrists, ankles and in her hair — with her traditional Tekua hairstyle and Ahenema on her feet.
Even her feet knew where they came from; GYE NYAME among the symbols. Red, black and yellow telling their own stories. And beside her stood her greatest inheritance: Mama Aba, her daughter Lael, and the women of her family.
With Mama Aba and daughter Lael
With her sisters Ahoba (left) Aba and Alua – the Ahanta || Nzema Arthur Girls
Mama Aba. Proud mother
This was not heritage as museum display. This was heritage in full living colour. And then came the rather extraordinary family moment. In full sight of all the cast of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills who also showed up to witness the ceremony. And she dressed them all in spectacular Kente kaba that just totally made the whole show look so beautiful.
Bozoma’s father, Dr Apianda Arthur, could not attend because of ill health. So she asked former President Nana Akufo-Addo – a father figure to her and, as many of us know, a man with whom she has a long Ghana story dating back to the ‘Year of Return’ – to stand in for him.
But even that required the proper Ghanaian formality. Dr Arthur, himself a former Member of Parliament, (during the third republic when Nana’s wife’s father was the Right Honorable Speaker) wrote to Nana Akufo-Addo asking him formally to represent him.
Nana accepted. And, well, the rest is wedding history. Which brings me to my own little assignment.
I am Bozoma’s uncle – her mother’s brother – and (in our Akan tradition, we don’t have a word for cousin) my sister had very specific instructions: “Brother, show up bedazzled for your niece and represent our Ahanta heritage.”
“Medi,” I replied simply in Ayinda – ‘I hear you’ in Ahanta language. That’s when I went to town to shop. To Bonwire for my dazzling white-and-gold Kente; Kati Torda of SunTrade and Odish of Togas & Beads for my accessories; Fred of Heal The World for my custom slippers. Then, to the ancestors for grace.
And I showed up. Resplendent in my Kente Ntama. Fully deployed for ancestral duty. Because family weddings are serious business. You don’t simply attend. You represent. And what a wedding this was!
Yours truly
Yours truly, seated inside the room to witness ‘History’, and fulfill “ancestral duties”
We changed for the reception
A delicious Ghana-meets-America mash-up of tradition, glamour, music, food, fashion and enough fabulous people to keep Instagram busy for weeks.
Held at the beautiful residence of former President Nana Akufo-Addo, the setting was pitch-perfect. I was seated by GTA boss Afua Houadjeto in the ceremonial room for the traditional marriage itself, and every now and then we exchanged those knowing little looks that said: Do you realise the significance of what we are witnessing here?
We did. This was culture being performed for nearly a thousand people – and simultaneously beamed into the world. Then came the fun.
Kidi serenaded the newlyweds. Efya added her magic. George Bannerman, as MC, got everybody loosened up with “Guess the Song”, and suddenly the assembled glitterati were shouting lyrics like old schoolmates at a house party. There!was even Tiwa Savage (who would later perform at the after party after the reception party!
There was fufu being pounded live by Menscook Catering. There was food. There was decor. There was dancing. There was laughter. And there was Ghana. Everywhere. That is what stayed with me.
The atmosphere was just…
Heritage wasn’t sitting quietly in a corner looking important. It was being eaten, worn, sung, danced and laughed into existence. And the global response has been rather lovely.
One commentator, Mawn Van Boven, put it beautifully: tradition “oozed out from every angle” and praised Bozoma for proudly wearing her Ghanaian identity on the world stage.
She also made the point that her wedding has added another layer to the good PR Ghana is already enjoying globally. Quite. Because this is Bozoma! Putting Ghana into every detail. And putting Ghana on the good radar – again.
A big Ayekoo! to Whit of Miracles and the Innorvation Events WBM team, led by Whitney Boakye Mensah, for pulling together what one online admirer described as an “epitome of Ghanaian cultural elegance.”
Whitney herself summed it up nicely: One Ghana. And perhaps that is the real story here. For all the celebrity, all the gold, all the glamour and all the international attention, the most fabulous thing about this wedding was that Ghana did not have to announce itself.
Intentionally curated by the WBM team led by Whit of Miracles!
Badass Boz, congratulations. May the marriage be even more fabulous than the wedding. And may you continue doing what you do so magnificently: putting Ghana into every detail, and keeping us on the good radar.
Now, I’d let Bozoma’s own declaration lead us there: “Call me by my name. Bozoma Afiba Mamekyi Arthur Saint John-Watson. QUEEN for short.” Well, alright then, Queen!
And, perhaps, that is what I hope Ghanaians – and especially those of us in the diaspora – take away from all this fabulousness. Come home.
Come home and see yourselves differently. Because slavery is not the beginning of our story. Before the ships and the chains, before the Atlantic was crossed under circumstances none of us would wish to remember, there were names. Families. Stools. Kingdoms. Craftsmen. Queens. Kings. Goldsmiths. Weavers. Priests. Traders. Artists. Philosophers. Farmers. Warriors. And traditions carrying generations of knowledge.
There was history. There was us. And Bozoma stood at her wedding wrapped in that history – literally. Four months of handwoven Kente from Bonwire. Adinkra wisdom woven into the cloth. Gold proclaiming inheritance and power. Ahenema on her feet. Tekua in her hair. Nzema from her father. Ahanta from her mother.
The Ahanta kinfolk
She didn’t dress up as Ghanaian. She dressed up as herself. And perhaps that is the most powerful bit of all. Because this is what happens when heritage stops being something we explain to visitors and becomes something we confidently inhabit ourselves.
That is the thing about Ghanaian celebrations: they are never merely occasions. They are social theatre, family reunion, fashion parade, food festival and cultural performance – sometimes before the champagne has even properly started flowing.
And somewhere in the middle of all this fabulousness was this ‘fave’ uncle, proudly flying the Ahanta flag in his Ntama. I may not have managed much mingling with the happy couple – there were simply too many people around them, and my old sciatica pain wasn’t exactly encouraging prolonged standing – but I was there.
And then, bless her, my niece saw my post online and replied: “My dear Uncle. My handsome Uncle. My fave Unc PJ!!! I love you. Thank you for repping so so so well.”
Well. What is an old uncle supposed to say to that? I shall simply retire gracefully. Mission accomplished. And yes, Boz… the Ntama was absolutely the business.
This is Bozoma. Putting Ghana into every detail. And, darling, the world is watching. So yes, Queen. Keep putting us on the good radar. And to everyone watching from Accra, Atlanta, London, New York and wherever else our people have scattered: Come home. There is more to our story than the Atlantic passage ships. Much, much more.
With fellow cast members of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
