Kofi Kingston Talks About His Jamaican Accent Gimmick And Getting Rid Of It

As noted earlier this week, Kofi Kingston did an interview with The Patriot Ledger where he talked about leaving college, working a job and training for wrestling and more. Here are some excerpts from the interview about his Jamaican gimmick, for the full interview, click here.

On doing the thick-accented Jamaican accent despite his Ghanian heritage: See the thing was, I was actually doing that before I even came to WWE. I think it was a big part of what kind of got me noticed.

Jamaica actually had a pretty big influence on my life. I'm really into music. On those long drives I would always listen to the Damian Marley CD. . . . I remember one day in practice I just started talking with a Jamaican accent and everyone's like, 'Oh, yeah, you've got to do that.' Because everyone tries to find a character to play. It just kept going from there.

Difficulty adjusting to dropping the accent: Oh, yeah, because at that point I was doing the whole Jamaican thing for about three years plus. So yeah, definitely weird. Even just being in the ring, I'd want to almost go back to that character. It's hard enough to know what you want to say out there, let alone think about how you have to say it.

If he would have been in character if the interview were done two years ago: I would have been in full-out accent.

To check out the full interview, click here

Thanks to Nick for contributing to this article.