Skeleton Racers Are Musicians Now [WAAMN Chapter 4.2]

Akwasi Frimpong is the Olympics’ first Black male skeleton athlete. Competing in the unfamiliar sport comes with a decision familiar to artists: when to quit your day job.

This is your weekly installment of my new book, We Are All Musicians Now. To make sure you don’t miss future serializations, subscribe here. Below you’ll find Chapter 4: The Accidental Musicians (Part 2). Enjoy!

<< PREVIOUS CHAPTER << || TABLE OF CONTENTS || >> NEXT CHAPTER >>

On a snowy New Year’s Eve in 2013, after narrowly missing a chance to qualify for the Sochi Winter Olympics as a bobsledder, Akwasi Frimpong found his next gig—as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. 

By early 2014, the Utah Valley University grad had become America’s No. 1 seller of Kirby vacuums (which can go for as much as $2,500 a pop), moving 32 units in his first 18 days. He was running his own franchise within five months, and a year later had 30 people working for him, clocking nearly $1 million in gross sales. Then a coach suggested flipping from bobsled to skeleton for the 2018 Olympic games.

“‘It’s like that thing on my bucket list, I have to make it happen,’” Frimpong remembers telling his wife. “And so she looked at me, she said, ‘I don’t want you to be 99 years old and still be waiting about your Olympic dream. So let’s go for it.’”