Month: June 2012

So earlier in the month i had the pleasure of hosting Checkmate at the Ghafla offices.

And it was quite the ingtriguing interview as i got to have a chat with a young artist who boasts a wide repertoire of artistic talents.

For those of you foggy with your details, Checkmate was May’s Kwani featured artist so you know he’s real good. And to crown it, he is a beatboxer and an actor with the Theatre Company. Anyway, enough of that, here’s the interview:

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Daddy Owen did this song with the physically disabled in his mind and heart, and collaborated with one of the best singers in Kenya, Denno.

The song titled, ‘Mbona’ has for a long time been the most viewed video, ever since it was launched, and also receives mad airplay on radios throughout the day.

Check out the video, you are going to be seeing this a lot.

This Tusker Project Fame contestant is not resting on her laurels… following the release of her single ‘Shine’, she has followed it up with another brilliant new song.

The piece is titled ‘Why’. Have a first listen to it right here:

Rosy Ohon recently did a beautiful Divine track titled ‘Nibariki’ that took Kenya by storm and received quite some air play.

Being the conciderate lady that she is, she thought about those that cannot understand Kiswahili and came up with an English version, titled ‘Bless me’. How cool is that?

Here it is, and get it’s review here.

The Sauti Academy is indeed making Kenya proud by helping talented youths explore and expand their talents in music.

I have just shared with you a video of a lady doing an acoustic track and showcasing her beautiful voice.

Now, one of their male artistes has just done the same and this time, Bob Marley’s ‘Turn your lights down low’ is the song played. Check it out.

In the first part of Bupe’s interview with A-Star, the “Hip Hope” artiste spoke about learning to forgive his father and balancing the bible and music for the new generation of listeners.

He also speaks about the progression of his music after his first effort, Without You. He got into a series of songs, that were not only spiritual but catchy. About that and his experience in the gospel group, Chit Chat, check out the rest of the interview below.
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These Kenyan artistes have just done their own version of American rapper, Tyga’s ‘Rack City’. I will not talk much about originality, considering that they haven’t done bad at all.

The song id done by DJ MYC and rapper Maze.

Have a listen and give us your honest feed back.

I just stumbled upon this video that was uploaded on YouTube just yesterday by Penya Africa’s Sauti Academy students.

The academy must be doing some really awesome work as it clearly shows in this little indoor performance by these two.

The singer’s name is Ndila and the title of the song is ‘Jailer’. Come to think of it, we should have had her in this year’s Project Fame.

After a very long vacation from music, and a series of controversies here and there, Jimwat is finally back in the studios and is already doing some freestyles for warm up.

The Calif Records rapper has just released a freestyled track that he has done with fellow rapper, Love-E that they have titled ‘Freestyle 2012’ on their soundcloud profile.

Have a listen to this track and tell us if you think Jimwat is ready for his come-back.

From the first time i heard these guys perform their brand of AfroFusion, i was sold!

Whatever it was that they were selling, i was buying!

These guys have found an interesting way of telling even the most mundane of stories in a new and entertaining way.

Just take “Usilewe” as an example. The group Yunasi managed to tell the story as interestingly as possible and when i watched them perform it at Sawa Sawa Fest, i was blown away!

These guys are as exciting to watch as Femi Kuti! These guys are without a doubt Kenya’s response to west Africa’s maestro -and if you don’t believe me, then check out this old jam of theirs:

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And granted, they have newer material and they are back in from the musical cold but i feel this track best represents the fact!

Octopizo’s ‘Octomontana’ song that had been done a while back and was just chilling for the video completion is finally done. This time, Octo decided to go for the animation vibe and it’s pretty interesting.

Octomontana is all about Octopizzo’s alter ego that has just escaped from jail and is now taking over the city, through very cruel means. He is like the godfather of this small animated town and I have to say that he has a rather interesting story to tell through this video.

I officially take my hat off for Octopizzo and I think all of you will have to do the same once you hear all the punch lines that he dishes out. I mean, from the first lines of the first verse until the last, just awesome punch lines.

My personal favorite line is, “nawamada na line mbili kama simu za China”. LOL! Here, check it out.

These by my humble estimation are Kenya’s most creative music videos and the video directors behind them deserve a round of applause.

All this was precipitated by an an intruiging debate i have had with #TeamGhafla about why Kenyan artists are rushing to have their videos done by certain esteemed (half) compatriots of mine.
I am however of the opinion that “supply and demand” should take a back seat to patriotism. Let’s first start by building our music industry ergo the music video sector then we can let demand and supply dictate who survives and flourishes: protectionism.
But enough of the scholastic debates, back to the music videos:
#5 Mejja’s Furahia (this is a contentious decision as most people wanted Landlord in it’s stead but this is my piece!)

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#4 Wakimbizi’s Hallo Hallo (that’s right, even the oldies get onboard if they are goldies)

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#3 Lady S’ Ukimwona

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#2 Just A Band’s Huff Puff

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#1 Just A Band’s Ha-He (what can we say? This video trended worldwide people! Even CNN joined the bandwagon!)

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Bupe appeared on K24’s Get Lifted, an inspirational interview show hosted by A-Star. The gospel “Hip Hope” artiste spoke about his heritage, relationship with his father, history of drugs in his family and the hardships he had to go through growing up.

One of the subjects that came up was how he got into music. He revealed that his first song was Without You, which he did with Brian King of the Votaries. In 2007, he joined Hip Hope family, then when it had A-Star, Riggah, Michelle and Juliani. He later went on to do a series of catchy gospels songs like Glorious and Dance.

Check out the rest of the interview below.
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Having been in the industry for over 10 years, the Insyder rarely goes wrong with editions which make it undisputedly Kenya’s BIGGEST teen magazine.

The July edition is about to drop and here’s the cover to the edition (image above). The copy will highlight two of the country’s leading disk jockeys, Creme de la Creme and Hypnotiq, as they talk about their lives, their loves and what it was like in high school.

On the inside of the magazine you’ll get your FREE copy of Rihanna and William Levy posters. What do you think about the latest Insyder cover?

I have to admit, I’m kind of jealous of our neighbours and how they always end up getting the best of the best international rappers to perform in their countries. I’m talking about our immediate neighbours, Uganda and Tanzania, and not Africa as a whole.

Just a few years back, Jay Z and wife, Beyonce, visited Tanzania and had a concert for them. From what I hear, the concert was off the hook and they left guys asking, no, begging for more.

This year, I already informed you guys of the huge concert in Uganda that will be happening this August and the artistes to perform are Demarco and Wayne Wonder. Can you believe this? Wait, that’s not all. The following month (September), 50 Cent will be performing there too, according to sources. 50 CENT.

Wayne Wonder

 

I don’t know if you’ve seen any of 50’s concerts on video, and if you have, you are certainly feeling what I’m feeling right now. I would kindly suggest to Kenya’s event organisers and promoters to actualy think about going big like their Ugandan counterparts. This really sucks guys. Whenever these high profiled artistes visit us, it always has something to do with charity or tourism, not that I don’t appreciate it. I really do. I’m actually grateful for my beautiful country, but let’s just face it… our event organisers suck big time. #word

Hold It Down is one of the tracks off Maluda’s debut album, Transformed. The song starts off mellow, builds up to more prominent hook and gets catchier at the chorus, “One shot for my king who gave his everything/Two shots for his love and forever being…”

The progression comes naturally and seems controlled. No effort to escalate the mood as it goes on, which comes off well as the song doesn’t seem pretentious. By the end, you get into the rhythm and you can’t help but chant along to what seems like a call to action.

He does a brand of hip hop we rarely see in Kenya’s gospel industry. One that would be described as more “gangster.” A lot of Kenyan gospel hip hop is the bubble-gummy, sing-songy type, as it makes it easier for people to dance along to because in Kenya–it seems–gospel music also has to be club music.

Maluda is about to blow. In no time, he will be one of the most talked about artistes in the gospel industry. Check out Hold It Down below.

The XYZ show and Buni TV have done it yet again with an entertaining parody to American rapper Dr. DRE’s massive hit single ‘Still D.R.E.’

The song titled ‘RAO Still DRE’ takes a comical look at the Prime Minister’s presidential campaign coupled with the obstacles to that coveted seat in the next general election.

‘Swagga Balla…still Prime Minister na sasa tumeongeza ‘Dr.” says the puppet that represents Raila Odinga, with what appears to Margaret Wanjiru yelling fanatically in the background.

Have a look at the video below…

Initially, Redsan used to be a member of a group named One 2 Moja. This was a brief union, as he shortly broke off to go solo.

He joined Ogopa DJs, who were the hottest record label around at the time. His first act as a solo artist was to collabo with Ugandan artists Bebe Cool and Jose Chameleone, who were also signed to the same label. His first verse as a solo artist was on ‘The Hiho song,’ a collaboration with Bebe Cool, which we have embedded below.

Give it a listen and tell us what you think:

Chantelle was on last month’s Salon Magazine where she talked about a range of subjects from her childhood growing as the only girl in the family, losing her mother early, her heritage and how she “accidentally” got into the music industry.

Rapper Abbas was at her house for a party that she had invited him for. Up until this point, they were just friends. But by the end of the night, they were to collaborate on what would become one of the hottest tracks of the year.

Abbas dared her to sing but she declined saying all she can do is rap. The veteran rapper was persistent and she agreed. “We sat at a corner and Abbass gave me a story from which I extracted some lyrics.” That same night, the whole song was written. The next day, it was recorded. In a week, the song was out.

“I was pleasantly impressed by my voice and the positive response the song got. It was playing all over and this confirmed that we came up with something beautiful,” she said. On being asked what the song is really about, she added, “Tokelezea is basically a fun song and does not address anything in particular.”
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Kidum just joined an exclusive club in the Kenya music circles. His video for Haturudi Nyuma has more than one million views on YouTube. The singer is set to perform in Atlanta this weekend.

Another high performer is Kigeugeu, which has 659,000 views, with about 270,000 more views on UG Pulse and tens of thousands more on other channels. Vernacular music also unsuspectingly get a lot of views. For example, a fairly  unknown song by Christopher Monyoncho, Kwini Na Biyaki, has just short of 565,000 views on the video platform.

Just-A-Band’s Ha-He just crossed 470,000. The thing with Ha-He is that a lot of those views came all at once, which would make it one of the few viral videos out of Africa. The video Haturudi Nyuma was uploaded a month after Ha-He and has received consistent views since then, which explains how it–almost sneakily–beat everyone to the top.

Haturudi Nyuma is one of the highest rated songs in the region as it appeals to listeners of all ages, unlike a lot of love songs which can be considered too explicit for the older generation too uncool for the younger ones.

STL is one of the most consistent artistes when it comes to YouTube views. Most of her videos have crossed the 100,000 views mark. Lonely Island’s collaboration with Rabbit also has more than 1,000,000 views on YouTube but that is expected considering it was on the Lonely Island channel.

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Stella Mwangi’s Bad As I Wanna Be might just be this year’s most anticipated tracks. The rapper came back into the country to shoot the video, which immediately raised the hype around it after fans learnt that she would close down a whole street in the CBD for the shoot.

The track and video will be released on the 29th of June and anticipation for the final product builds up with each passing day. Below is a teaser, which gives us a first look into the video. Judging from this, there’s going to be some serious bad-assery to be served around.

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I shan’t try to be cultured or toned down about this:

WHERE IS RAT-A-TAT?!

back when Calif was on the come-up, their stable featured a certain a livewire female rapper by the name Rat-a-tat.

At first she would feature in songs done by her male counterparts then she did her debut single and a star was born. Or so we thought. She unfortunately fizzled out as suddenly as she happened on the scene leaving her fans (like myself) utterly devastated and wanting more.

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She gave us a banging self titled track then eventually formed an all girl super group with her stablemates: Lady S and Choku and they adopted the name Calif Angels. They did two tracks (one devoid of fellow group member Lady S who had sadly passed on to glory).

unfortunately, all we have to remember either Rat-a-tat or her collective by are these couple of tracks:

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She blasted into the Kenyan music scene with a killer track featuring one of the country’s most consistent musicians. The track was followed up by an equally awesome video, directed by one of Africa’s most in-demand directors, Clarence Peters. Chantelle couldn’t have made a bigger debut.

Chantelle (Winnie Wambui Naisula Ole Siameto) was recently featured in May’s Salon Magazine where she talked about her Indian, Kikuyu and Maasai origins and losing her mother at a young age. She also spoke about her dream of becoming a TV presenter and how she got into rapping by chance.

Her debut single, Abbass’ Toklezea, became one of the most popular songs released over the past year, even receiving an astronomically popular remix on the political satire show, XYZ.

When you think of Kenyan music finally gaining mainstream acceptance, who comes to mind? Which artists’ images are conjured up?

For most of us from back in the day, we think of the likes of E-sir, Nameless, Amani, Deux Vultures, Redsan ad infinitum. Well, K-Shaka was doing it long before but they never really penetrated the mainstream market.
E-Sir went above and beyond penetrating the mainstream, he made Kiswahili cool! Not sheng, not pidgin Swahili, he made lugha mufti cool. That was quite the achievement.
These are the the guys who paved the way for the likes of Nonini, P-unit, Sauti Sol, Just A Band and Octopizzo. Actually, the irony in the grand scheme of things is that Octopizzo is similar to Abass Kubaff who upon realizing that the industry wasn’t too friendly to him, ochestrated a break-in along with his partner in crime Bamboo.
Anyway, i am not here to flap my gob about these legends, i’m here to do my bit and honor them. Ladies and gentlemen, i present to you these pioneers:
Redsan
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Namless
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Amani
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Gidi Gidi Maji Maji
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The late Wiki Mosh
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The late E-Sir
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THe late Kurupt
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Kidum will be live in concert this Saturday, 30th June at the Jett Lounge on 3701 Clairmont Road in Atlanta Georgia. The artiste will be backed up by DJ Armstar and DJ Kilkenny.

Kidum started in a band at age 12, and it shows. He is one of the highest rated live band performers in the country. He has performed locally from bands to huge concerts, including Tusker Project Fame.

Kidum also recently achieved a milestone. His Haturudi Nyuma, in which he features Ugandan singer and Tusker Project Fame judge Juliana Kanyomozi, is one of the biggest hits in the region in terms of popularity. The video recently crossed a million views on YouTube.

You may not have heard about him yet but he might just be the next big thing in the gospel music industry. Maybe even the entire hip hop scene. Maluda (Music And Love Under Divine Authority) is about to blow.

Unlike other artistes who start experimenting with singles before making the dip, the rapper already has an album out. Transformed dropped on the 22nd of April this year from which he released the single, That Money. The song went all the way to the top of Homeboyz’ Radio Tricrew chart. The second release, Going Down stayed at the top of the same chart for a month.

And Maluda is not resting. He is currently working on a mixtape which he hopes to have ready by September. He has also featured on two songs that are high up on Homeboyz charts. Othole’s Heavy Weight is number three and MC Dice’s Medicine is number two. Check out one of his tracks, Going Down, below

RGB Tomsy is an singer, music and film producer from Nakuru. The East Africa Media Institute trained film production graduate ventured into music in 2000. He comes from Nakuru but records at Cayman Records in Nairobi.

As a film producer, he has worked on local and international productions such as BBC, Cayman Ventures, 13 November Films and Black & White Entertainment. He wrote and recorded Street Boy, a song about his tribulations in the streets of Nakuru, Eldoret and Nairobi. The song has received a fair amount of airplay on Tanzania’s Cloud FM.

Stategal is a song about a girl who changes her ways and lifestyle after going abroad and how it is affecting her lover. Check out the video below.
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Rapper Rayzzo seems to be connecting with the best in this hip hop business  as he collaborates with the one and only Kaligraph Jones in his latest track, ‘Listen and learn’, intended to give everyone a lesson in hip hop.

When Kaligraph Jones raps, he sounds something out of a Twista album fused with some of BoneThug’s flow. In simple terms, dude can rap! From lyrics to flow, he is just too lethal. No wonder everyone is lining up to collaborate with him.

Here, have alisten to this track. You’ll love it.

These are the Kenyan rappers that are always on the grind doing what they do best and making the best of it. They dish out songs almost as soon as the last one has caught everyone’s attention. On to the next one, they say. Here is a list of the top five, according to Ghafla!, and oh, we are talking about songs that actually hit.

5. Daddy Owen. With all the collaborations that he does, with him doing the featuring, it is quite hard not to think of him in this category. Always has something up his sleeve. I would not be surprised to hear that his next song has already been released.

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4. Juliani. You just gotta love this guy and his energy. The intervals in between each song of his album, ‘Pulpit kwa street’ were just too short, and he is already on the way to deliver a new track. Watch this space closely.

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3. Wyre. I love calling him the king of the dancehall, maybe because there is absolutely no competition for him right here. I would concider Redsan, but he is nowhere to be heard now, is he? Collaborating here and there, with artistes across the world, this is one hard working guy.

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2. Nonini. Ever since he issued out his first track, ‘manzi wa Nairobi’, it has been a fun and continous ride of music with this guy. Even after leaving Calif Records, he still kept on releasing songs with ver short intervals in between. Not forgetting how he is fong of always introducing new talents to the industry.

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1. Abbas. he is without a doubt the artist that keeps on coming hard with all his new tracks. He knocks us down even before we are used to the previous tracks that he dropped on us. Abbas has worked with most of the Kenyan artistes and even aas he is currently in Germany, rumour has it that he is working on a couple of tracks as we speak.

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