Michael Blackson

Michael Kojo Blackson (né Kojo Bediako, born November 28, 1972) is a Ghanaian-Liberian actor, and comedian based in the United States. His stage surname is a parody of pop singer, Michael Jackson.

Michael Kojo Blackson was born Kojo Bediako on November 28, 1974, in Liberia to a Liberian mother and Ghanaian Father. His family lived in the slum of Clara Town in Monrovia. He spent his young years in between Monrovia and Ghana before relocating to the United States in the mid-1980s. His father died in 2008. Michael lived in Newark, New Jersey, when he was 13, and then settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, when he was 15. He began pursuing comedy after his coworker at Domino's suggested he start open mic. He made one of his first appearances on screen as a student extra in the 1989 film Lean On Me.

In 2005, he released a comedy sketch CD entitled Modasucka: Welcome to America. Also in 2005, he made an appearance on the TV series 30 Rock, P. Diddy Presents: The Bad Boys of Comedy on HBO,[10] and starred in a commercial for Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central.

In 2011, Blackson appeared on Starz's Martin Lawrence Presents: 1st Amendment Stand-Up and Showtime's Shaquille O'Neal Presents All Star Comedy Jam.[11][12]

In 2019, Blackson appeared in the "Wakonda" official music video by Akon.[13]

On July 31, 2021, Blackson proposed to his girlfriend, Rada Darling, during a radio interview on The Breakfast Club, they continue to be together as partners.[14] On November 24, 2021, he became a U.S citizen. Blackson is the uncle of Miami Dolphins cornerback Eli Apple.[15] As part of his work in philanthropy he built a school in Ghana that was commissioned in early January 2023. The school, which is eponymously named Michael Blackson Academy, is located at Agona Nsaba in the Agona East District of Ghana’s Central Region where he grew up.[16]