Listen to Your Footsteps

Book excerpt: 'Those who know Kojo would have known what to expect in Listen to Your Footsteps a deeply personal, authentic and equally intellectual journey of a quintessential African. A storyteller for the ages, every word and anecdote is like being alone with him in a quiet place as he narrates what it takes to be a real man, doting father, loving son, devoted friend and committed partner. - THEBE IKALAFENG, founder and principal at Africa Brand Leadership Academy 'An insightful memoir of Kojo growing up, navigating family and figuring out his contribution to the world that reads as a beautiful ode to his father. With every word he writes there is a sense of responsibility to leave the world better than he found it. A true wordsmith; the landscape of his memories dances on the page.' - TUMI MORAKE, comedian and author of And then Mama Said Kojo Baffoe embodies what it is to be a contemporary African man. Of Ghanaian and German heritage, he was raised in Lesotho and moved to South Africa at the age of 27. Forever curious, Kojo has the enviable ability to simultaneously experience moments intimately and engage people (and their views) sincerely, while remaining detached enough to think through his experiences critically. He has earned a reputation as a thinker, someone who lives outside the box and free of the labels that society seeks to place on us. Listen to Your Footsteps is an honest and, at times, raw collection of essays from a son, a father, a husband, a brother and a man deeply committed to doing the internal work. Kojo reflects on losing his mother as a toddler, being raised by his father, forming an identity, living as an immigrant, his tussles with substance abuse, as well as his experiences of fatherhood, marriage and making a career in a fickle industry. He gives an extended glimpse into the experiences that make boys become men, and the battles that make men discover what they are made of, all the while questioning what it means to be 'a man'.