Month: June 2012

Tanzanian singer Hussein Machozi may just be ready to become a Kenyan citizen. Seeing that his great music music is very much appreciated here in Kenya than in his own country, Hussein may be considering to moving permanently into Kenya according to sources.

Hussein has done various collaborations with Kenyan artistes including Size 8 and two Mombasa artistes.

Some of his songs like ‘unanifaa‘ and ‘kwa ajili yako‘ are some of Kenya’s favorite tunes, not forgetting his song with Size 8, ‘Nipe‘ which is currently receiving good play.

Well, if this should be the case, you are most welcome Hussein.

Whether you agree or not, this is sadly true for some of our own. It’s sad really.

Whatever happened to music evaluation and standards? Everybody is just after the mulla. WTH!

An exciting new stage at this year’s 4th annual Broadcast, Film and Music Africa (BFMA) conference will see film-makers and broadcasters, as well as other creative content firms interact with potential investors (otherwise known as venture capitalists) to pitch their business ideas and attract funding.

The investment platform, dubbed the African Electronic Media Business Exchange, is being put together by Filmbiz Africa in collaboration with AITEC Africa and has already attracted venture capital institutions from as far afield as the Netherlands and the US who embrace investment focus on film, broadcasting and creative content development.
Film-makers, music production houses, unique TV and radio initiatives, animators, advertising agencies, broadcasters and pollsters who attend the conference are being cited as potential beneficiaries.
“It is the best gift the BFMA conference series could give nascent high-potential firms in the continent,” said Michael Onyango, of the Africa Creative Hub, urging other content developers to grasp the opportunity.
About 13 leading venture capitalists have been invited and six have already confirmed participation.
“We can confirm that the US-headquartered Acumen Fund and the Netherlands based Africa Media Ventures Fund will be at the 4th BFMA for the Electronic Media Business Exchange,” said Chiaka Orjiako of Filmbiz Africa which is collaborating with AITEC Africa to host the Exchange.
Investeq Capital Limited, 88mph, Speed Capital and InReturn Capital are other prominent firms that will participate in the Exchange..
BFMA, now back in Nairobi for the 4th time, is the largest gathering of film, music, and broadcasting media professionals in the continent.
The conference discusses contemporary and future broadcasting models for pay and Free to Air (FTA) TV, Radio, trends in creative content, digital content development, dynamics in Africa Film among other issues such as music distribution as well as policy and management matters that impact on their growth. Cinema is also coming under a sharp focus at the July event, with presenters brainstorming whether the big screen is “dead or just in a coma”.
This conference has already attracted participation from film and broadcasting industries from across the world including the UK, US, South Africa, Mauritius, Uganda, China, with backing of such locally based institution such as the Kenya Film Commission, UNESCO and multiple media houses.
The conference also expects to host an exciting session on film content and cinema, with leading executives from Nigeria and Ghana film industry expected to share their experiences at the event.

Supremacy Sounds has been all over the U.S for the past few months, taking clubs and other venues by storm with their awesome reggae and dancehall shows.

This Saturday the 30Th, DJ Simple Simon will be holding it down at the Afro Beat Club in Kansas City alongside Mitch Darling and Robbs Margic from 10PM till dawn.

Taking the Kenyan vibe overseas. That’s what’s up!

Kaka Sungura aka Rabbit is a man so diverse in music you can’t even attempt to predict what he might do next. Being a rapper, you would expect Rabbit to just give us the usual rhymes on the usual hip hop beats, but no. He’s too creative to stay inside the box.

If you don’t already know, Rabbit is also a poet and has actually done some spoken word works on his latest mixtape titled ‘The Last King Of…’

Rabbit unique thing about Kaka Sungura is the fact that he is fond of musically collaborating with artistes that are far from the hip hop genre. Artistes that do music that one would never imagine could be fused with hip hop, just as he did with Anto Neosoul.

His latest track, ‘Salaam Aleikum’ which he has done with Ngalah (member of the Yunasi Band), is simply breath taking in so many levels. Ngalah brings in the Afro music that he so well does, and Rabbit fuses it with poetry. What’s even better about this track is the Nyatiti playing in the background. Rabbit manages to keep it deep and relevant with the lyrics as usual.

This is simply a sweet cocktail of poetry and Afro Fusion. Have a listen right here.

Allan T, through his work with Tricrew, is definitely “doing his bit to paint the world.” In the first part of the interview, Allan T spoke about how he got saved, touched on his upbringing and career. He also gave his opinion on new age gospel, from dance tracks and taking gospel to the clubs.

In the second part of the interview, the DJ, rapper, radio producer and Christ ambassador talks about his favorite musician, gives his thoughts on Prezzo in the Big Brother house, state of the Kenyan gospel music industry and his future plans, for himself and his gospel group, SPAT. He also gives his opinion on Ghafla! Check out part two of the interview below.
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Allan T is a breath of fresh air in the gospel music industry. He is an all-round artiste, a rapper, radio presenter and producer with Homeboyz Radio. He says he’s “just doing his bit to paint the world.” The rapper is also part of Tricrew, a Christian ministry that focuses on entertainment. Tri Crew hosts one of the top urban gospel radio shows in the country. Trinity Connect, also known as The 4th Service, airs on Homeboyz Radio on Sundays between 7:00 and 10:00 p.m. Allan T hosts the show with DJ Gee Gee, Deejay Sanch and DJ Nyash.

The 25 year old rapper recently sat down with Ghafla! for an interview where he talked about, amongst other things, his faith, calling, taking the gospel music industry by storm and an interesting bit about the first Mukorino DJ in the country. Check out the first part of the interview below.
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After close to a month of anticipation and speculation, as well as sneak peeks and snippets into what is destined to be one of the BIGGEST hits of the year, finally STL’s new single is with us.

Introducing the audio to ‘Bad as I Wanna Be’, right here on Ghafla! EXCLUSIVELY first. Enjoy! 

Diana Nduba has been doing a project where she releases a new track every week. The soulful singer has released five tracks so far and there are two left to go, that will hopefully be done in the next fortnight. We hope that after the conclusion of the project, she has more in store for us.

The silky voiced singer has previously done gospel music, Buzzin’ and I La La Like It as part of the group, Chit Chat and Glorious with Bupe. She has also done a solo track, Too Good. Previously, she had collaborated with Just-A-Band on Have You Seen Her? She can also be seen on KTN’s Briefcase Inc. She also starred in The Battle, a musical she also wrote and starred in.

Check out this week’s release, Magic In The Air, below.

Kisumu’s Collins Okoth and Juliet Karanja from Nairobi were announced as the winners of the Coca-Cola Kenya Olympic Anthem contest. The two were selected by the voting public through a process that was concluded on NTV’s The Beat last Friday.

“I think Kenya has made a good choice with Juliet and Collins,” said Madtraxx who will be the track’s producer. “I look forward to the magic we will be able to produce in studio in the coming weeks. It’s my hope the fans will continue to give us their input on Facebook and Twitter so that we can collectively make a real Kenyan Olympic anthem,” he added.

“I would like to thank Coca-Cola for giving me the opportunity to be involved in the search for new talent. It is not over though, as we are really looking forward to the recording of the song,” DJ Pinye said.

The competition started with auditions on 2nd June, 2012 and ended on 15th June, 2012, seeing over 300 hopefuls participating from the Kenyan cities, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. Judges whittled it down to a dozen finalists, and it was then left to the fans to pick the final two.

Senior Marketing Manager for Coca-Cola Kenya, Catherine Mudachi said, “This is a very exciting competition that provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the two talented winners to kick-start their music careers by being a part of something truly great.” She added, “We are confident that the anthem will spread the spirit of Olympics amongst Kenyan youth.”

Rapper Collins and singer Juliet will start recording with Madtraxx and a video will be follow shortly. The Coca-Cola Kenya Olympic Anthem is set to be released in early July.

You have probably heard about Octopizzo’s new business venture, a condom line that is set to take the youths by storm. If not, I completely understand. The guy has lately been launching so many businesses that it’s now hard to keep track.

With aim of fighting the spread of STDs and unwanted pregnancies among the youth, Octopizzo thought of a way to attract them to the use of condoms since, let’s face it, you can’t really expect us to stop, right?

So, Octo thought to himself, “what if I made the condoms glow in the dark.” I’m not really sure what brought this thought to his mind, but he didn’t waste any time in taking the initiative to make it happen.

Bringing in swag to the packaging, he made sure that they are as attractive and seductive as the action itself (if you know what I mean). I gotta say that he pulled it off. I’m not sure about the ‘glow in the dark’ feature, but the market will have the last word.

This will be very interesting considering that it’s market has been expanded to cover the whole of Africa.

Nonini has been in the music industry for about a decade. His first track, Nonini Ni Nini Na Ni Nani? didn’t receive as much airplay as his second effort, the breakout, Manzi Wa Nairobi in 2002. Three years later, he released his first album, Hanyaring Game. Many of his releases went on to be club anthems, like, Wee Kamu, Keroro and Furahi Day with Nameless.

In 2007, he released his second album, Mwisho Wa Mawazo which featured ’90s icon, Mercy Myra, celebrated Tanzanian rapper, Professor Jay, Coast artiste, Nyota Ndogo among others. In the same year, he made The Standard Newspaper list of 100 most influential Kenyans.

In 2009, Malaysia’s Limkokwing University named him International Lifestyle Ambassador. In the same year, he released his third album, Godfather. The Genge artiste has recently mostly released hits with P-Unit, an outfit he formed.

Nonini made a name for himself doing explicit music but the 29 year old has recently made a turn doing more conscious material with songs that have been featured on MTV’s Shuga and a song sensitizing people on the plight of albinos. We take a look back at Nonini’s gateway to the industry with a track that was one of the biggest hits in 2002, Manzi Wa Nairobi.
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When you have a listen to this track, international acts like Twista or Busta Rhymes come to mind.

The speed at which these guys go in on the track is just amazing! I had heard the two (Nightshift Diggito) a while back and i’m still amazed at how fast they can rap!

The title of fastest rappers in East Africa is safely theirs. and they have found an entertaining way to put it into a crunk track. Granted, the track titled “Ressurection” is a little old (It’s from January), but it’s still fresh.

Check out the video right here:

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Octopizzo is an awesome rapper and further more, he’s even a better businessman. This is probably the reason why I don’t get why this equally lethal rapper had to go and do this.

Then again, listening to this track ‘Take-Over’ by MC Mwakenya, there’s no denying that this guy can flow and deliver lyrics like no joke. I am very much interested in unfolding this ‘beef’ that no one seems to have heard of.

Mwakenya goes hard on Octo with lyrics like, “Octo asha-admit hana flow. What a flop, but ana seiling. Mi nina walls, hawa ma-rapper hawawezi penetrate lyrically.” Listen to all this and more from his track below.

We are yet to hear from Octopizzo on this one.

According to the recent KARF radio survey for the first quarter of 2012, Capital FM doesn’t have such a large audience.

 When it comes to total market share, the survey indicated that Capital owns only slightly above zero percent market share(0.3% to be exact). Despite this, Capital FM still manages to charge hundreds of thousands to advertise with them. Why is this so? Isn’t advertising supposed to be directly proportional to the size of the audience?

Well, it just so happens that there is a game-changing variable in the advertising world, known as Living Standard Measure(LSM). LSM refers to the level of wealth, happiness, comfort, material goods and necessities available to a certain socioeconomic class in a certain geographic area. It is measured on a scale of 1-10. It is categorised as following:

LSM 1-3 = The poor

LSM 4-6 = The middle class

LSM 7 and 8 = The upper middle class

LSM 9 and 10 = The rich

Capital have intentionally positioned themselves to take over the LSM 9-10 market, which consists of the Kenyans who reside in the leafy suburbs such as Karen and Muthaiga, commonly known as barbies. The unfortunate reality in the advertising industry is that advertisers value barbies waaay more than they value the poorer sufferers amongst us. It’s all about purchasing power. Advertisers reasoning is that they want to put their message in front of people who are likely to buy their product, so they’d rather spend more money putting their product in front of the barbies who listen to Capital. When it comes to the sufferers who listen to other radio stations, advertisers don’t believe that they can buy as much, so they pay less to put their message in front of the sufferers. 

Basically, in the advertising industry, a barbie in hand is worth 10 sufferers in the bush. THAT’s why Capital makes so much money despite a small audience.

Straight from the hood of Kawangware, a lethal rapper rises with a slow and fierce flow like that of American rapper Ice Cube. From the moment you hear his voice fuse with the beats, the first thing I notice is the extreme energy and command in his voice.

Going by the interesting stage name, ‘MC Mwakenya‘, this rapper proudly defends and represents his hood in his new track ‘Take-Over‘ in which he has lyrics like “Walidhani ni Dandora tu, wakasahau ku-call zima-moto. Dandora burning, Kawangware rising to the top. Na ka Kibera ndio the mother land, basi Kawangware ndio the ancestral land.” Clearly territorial and does not hide it in his music.

Take-Over has this urban hard core hip hop beats that grasp your attention and it all goes so well with the aggressive delivery of the lyrics and vocals. This track is the definition of hard hip hop and it’s just about time before you here the name MC Mwakenya in the airwaves and concerts.

Way to go Mwakenya. Have a listen right here.

They are The Electrique DJs and The Beat Parade. They have had a lot shows lately and many more planned. The Electrique DJs and The Beat Parade is an East African ensemble that fuses electronic dance music with native African instruments. They describe their sound as Rhumba House.

The group is made up of producers, DJs and percussionists. The producers and DJs are B-DJ, DJ Somi, Marcus Ezra, DJ Andy and Erin Black. The percussionists are Chalo Obuya on the conga and flute, Isaac on drums and Nyatiti, and Magati on the shakers and percussion. Others are Mbuch on the Marimba, Jackson Anduuru on the sax and Livi on bass guitar. The group performs under DDL Records.

The Electrique DJs & The Beat Parade have previously performed at Blankets & Wine in Nairobi and Mombasa. They have also held a series of shows over the past year with DJ Cortega. They will also perform at the upcoming Art & Beer Festival. You can sample some of their work below.

I’ve just had the pleasure of having an afternoon tet-a-tet with the beautiful Tina Kaggia about a myriad of topics.

One of the said topics that we discussed was the fact that Kenyan emcees feel that our local stations do not show own love. I put her to task to explain why this is the case if indeed it is.

She calmly explained to me that while indeed this has been the case for a long time, (even MCSK gave a report that stated the same) but according to her, One FM is not in the business of discriminating against our own.

Not one to be easily put off by a simple answer, i pressed on. What exactly are One FM’s criteria for what it considers to be good music? What exactly does good music entail?

I was rather shocked to find out that One FM’s only criteria is quality. If the song is of good sound quality, it doesn’t matter what language you sing it in, it will be played. Ofcourse there was the simple matter of whether or not the song would fall under the “urban” banner but that is no deterrent.

I was actually taken aback! And when she realised just how unconvinced i was (i mean, really? Certain anonymous stations that exclusively play foreign music had me thinking otherwise) then the rest of the lads in the office chimed in there agreement with what Tina was asserting.

Apparently, my radio ignorance didn’t allow me to see the truth but Tina Kaggia is clearly doing her bit for the entertainment industry. When the truth is told, very few radio presenters will be remembered for building the homegrown talent.

That means that if you have some music, aslong as it is quality music -not a pair of gorilla banging their heads against drums, you need to get it to One FM, have it earmarked for the lovely Tina and have all your friends listen in.

It’s official, riddims are not just a Caribbean affair anymore as the genre firmly takes root in Kenya and the demand for local production increases.

Season producer and musician Marc Brunnel has just released his latest single ‘Loving You’ off the LBF Riddim, a song dedicated to listeners who are in love.

Check out the brand new single right here and show Brunnel some love…

Most Kenyan gospel music usually have almost the same flow and sound, so it gets really interesting when artistes come up with something out of the ordinary, mainly on sound and delivery, and that is precisely what these two guys have brought to the table.

Jagas and Tariko collaborated to create this gospel track titled ‘sijali‘ which has a fast pace beat almost resembling those of dancehall genre of music, except, this track has some bit of African beats in it and the rhythm of the artistes is fantastic.

Simple lyrics accompanied with a simple video, and the tune to the chorus is just awesome. Check out the video, I’m sure you’ll love it.

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