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Today, we are excited to shine a spotlight on Kerkula Blama, popularly known as Aketella. Kerkula Blama is one of Liberia’s best and most followed bloggers on social media. He is a vlogger on YouTube and a Playlist curator on Spotify and Instagram, using his platforms to promote Liberia Entertainment.
Early Childhood
He was born and raised by his parents in Salala Bong County amidst the heated 1990 – 2003 civil crisis that was still ongoing in the country.
His family later moved to Monrovia when the war ceased a bit. They stayed in the Snow Hill community of Gardnersville. He started his Preschool and primary education at St. Phillip Elementary and Junior high school.
In Monrovia, he experienced the 2003 Civil unrest that happened mainly in Montserrado County and grew up with his older brothers and sisters. They were all kept safe from the war and malatias who were constantly recruiting people to fight on the Frontline.
When the war seized, Aketella and his brothers were able to start schooling at a local community school in their area.
Educational Background
Kerkula Blama began his pre-school education at the Daniel E. Brownell Daycare school in the Snow Hill Community, Gardnerville. At the age of Five, He was unfortunate not to officially form part of the graduating class from Kindergarten because his parents could not afford the graduation fee. Amazingly, the Principal named Aketella the class Dux even without him officially forming part of the program.
He did not enter a classroom until his father found a job with the Firestone Rubber Plantation Company in 2004. When they moved there, he began elementary education with the Firestone School System, precisely, the Division 14 Elementary School. Upon graduation from elementary school in 2009, he continued his studies at Division 16 junior high school, another Firestone School.
He graduated from Junior High school in 2011 and had to move to Cotton Tree, a town on the Monrovia-Buchanan Highway, to live and study at the only high school on the plantation; The Firestone Liberia Senior High School.
In 2015, Aketella was among the 700-plus students who passed the WASSCE and all the courses prescribed in his school’s curriculum certifying him to become a graduate, thereby acquiring a Diploma from the school in 2015. Because of the outbreak of EBOLA, the graduation ceremony he was to be a part of, was postponed to 2016.
In 2020 he began college education at the African Methodist Episcopal University. He is now a second-year student at the University where he is studying Management Major and Public Administration Minor. In 2022, he attended the Orange Digital Center program for Website Design, came top of his class, and acquired a certificate in Website Design.
Professional Career
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Kerkula Blama started as an upcoming producer in 2016 when he first moved to the Kpelleh Town community, on SD Cooper Road in Paynesville. Using only a laptop and earpiece, he and his friends downloaded free beats from the internet to use in their production. As time went by, a friend of his introduced him to real music when they first visited a studio owned by Santo Music in the same community. After the completion of the project, it was time to get the songs uploaded on some downloading platforms, and that’s how he got in contact with PlusLiberia. Based on the caption he provided as was requested for the uploading of the song, PlusLiberia got interested in his writing skills and signed him up as a writer and web manager (to upload songs and write articles). Hence, his blogging career began in 2016.
A few years later, in 2018, he decided to push a Facebook page into a blog, which he named LIB Geez. In no time, the page started to acquire massive public admiration and paved the way for Aketella to enter the entertainment industry permanently.
Since then, he has been working hard to push his brand. Later in 2020, he changed the blog’s name from LIB Geez to Geez Liberia which today has its mother company; Geez Group Of Companies, and other branches of blogs in few other African Countries. Those of which includes Geez Ghana, Geez Nigeria, Geez Sports, Geez Salone, and AME University Geez. He is the CEO and founder of all of these News and Media blogs/websites.
In 2021, Kerkula Blama started vlogging and created a YouTube channel where he discusses hot in-depth topics about the entertainment industry. His vlog Kerkula Blama (Aketella) on YouTube now has 853 Subscribers and has acquired the total of 71,008 organic views as of the time this article was written.
Quickly into 2022, he started his journey as a radio personality when he began hosting an entertainment radio show, “The Weekend Exclusive,” on Kool FM in Liberia. Aketella is also a certified web designer with a certificate in Website Design from the Orange Digital Center.
Achievements
Kerkula Blama was nominated for the WAFRIC awards 2019 in the category of Best Online Blogger Of The Year.
He was nominated for the Paynesville Entertainment Awards in 2019 as best blogger/promoter of the year.
His blog Geez Liberia has also been nominated thrice for the Paynesville Entertainment Awards. From 2019- 2022
Certificate In Website Design – Orange Digital Center.
In 2022 he became the first Liberian blogger to achieve over 150K organic Followers on Instagram.
Hobbies
During his spare time, Aketella loves reading, listening to music, surfing the internet, and coding.
