Gold Weights and Griots

The African kingdoms the textbooks skipped past

Kofi Mensah-Darko2 episodes2 min of audio138 playsEpisodic

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S1 · E2Sep 17, 20260:5080 plays Preview

The King of Kongo Writes to the King of Portugal

Between 1506 and 1543, Afonso I of Kongo sent dozens of letters to Lisbon about trade, priests and the slave traders ruining his kingdom. Kofi reads them and asks what Lisbon did.

S1 · E1Sep 6, 20260:4958 plays Members

The Guild That Cast the Benin Bronzes

The famous bronzes were made by a hereditary guild in Benin City over four centuries. Kofi explains who the casters were, how the work was organised, and what the plaques recorded.

About the show

Kofi Mensah-Darko went through twelve years of school in Accra and was taught more about Tudor England than about the Asante empire whose capital was two hours up the road. Gold Weights and Griots is his weekly answer to that: a narrated history series, around forty minutes an episode, on the kingdoms, empires and city-states of Africa before and during the colonial period. Mali under Mansa Musa, the Benin bronzes and the guild that cast them, the Kingdom of Kongo's correspondence with Lisbon, Great Zimbabwe, Aksum and its coinage, the Asante gold weights that gave the show its name, the Zulu state under Shaka, the Kanem-Bornu letters to Istanbul. Kofi uses oral tradition from griots and court historians alongside written sources and archaeology, and he is clear about where they disagree. The tone is curious rather than defensive. For listeners of African heritage who were taught the same gaps, and for anyone who wants the continent's history on its own terms.

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