Beda Ehrensperger
What makes a European want to move to Africa to try his luck? Why does he want to leave all his comfort, his secure job and his safety just to expose himself in a dirty and corrupt environment with bad roads and insufficient power supply?
These are the questions Beda Ehrensperger hears everyday. One answer he gives is his event centre called “Beda's” in Old Ashongman, which he and his wife Mefia started building during the last 5 years and just started to operate one month ago. It is a great complex with a stage, a studio, a bar, a restaurant and beautifully furnished hotel rooms. Every friday to sunday you can enjoy good live music and the delicious kitchen serves you 7 days a week.
Music plays an important role while answering the questions above. Beda and his band are about to release the upcoming album of “Heaven No Beer” with singer Atongo Zimba, with whom they have a strong and deep collaboration. Beda released some of his songs alongside Kofi Kinaata and on 22nd May, Beda's event centre and his band will host a streamed concert for the virtual edition of Afropfingsten Festival – one of Europe’s biggest African music festivals, with Wiyaala, Yaa Yaa, and Atongo Zimba on the lineup. (Tickets available here: 020 667 06 15).
Okay, these are good and awesome reasons to move from Switzerland to Ghana! But what brings out such a crazy idea and makes it happen? Drums, since Beda can remember, has been beating them.
After he quit high school to become a musician and made it through the entrance examination to study at the Music University in Zurich, he learned that the rhythms he’s playing on the drums are rooted in West Africa. After his masters in 2003, he learned from the late and legendary Kofi Missiso at the Arts Centre in Accra a lot about the deep and rich traditions of African rhythms for more than a year. Just 10 days before he left for Switzerland he met his wife Mefia, who followed him into the cold weather. They became a family with two boys and intended to spend the rest of their lives in the comfort zone.
Until then, Beda couldn't resist his inner call anymore, he told his family to follow him back to Africa. Nobody knew what was coming up, if the music would be successful, or what it takes to build an event centre.
The love for the drums made him discover Ghana. The love for his wife made him settle down here. The love for the world and his children made a dream come true and will surely have a huge and positive impact on the future.
