Month: August 2012

Wryterz Block is the four-member rap ensemble made up of G’Zay, AtwalMusic, Phaze and Flaev. The group has previously released Dance and So Special, which you can listen to here.

The group makes soulful and heartfelt hip hop music that at times borders on electro. This time, they go all hip hop, but it’s still laid-back. Smile is the second single off their yet-to-be titled mixtape. The first one being So Special.

“It’s an inspirational song made for the ones that feel they can’t take it anymore and just wanna quit. There’s always a reason to smile and look forward to a better tomorrow. WB all day!!” says G’Zay, who formed the group.

Check out Wryterz Block’s Smile below.

In a recent interview with Insyder magazine, Octo opened up…

And he spoke nopt just of his life as a celebrity but even before that. He talks about losing his parents while in second and third form when his father and mother died respectively and the struggles he had to endure thereafter.

He let’s us see a totally new side of him… Not the clean celebrity but the man behind that mask. We look at him struggling to eke out a living as a mechanic in Nairobi’s industrial area to the job that gave him enough money to finally do his first track.

We get to also see the businessman side of numba nane’s hiphop messiah and he even lets on that he benefits more from this side of his life than from the fame he has garnered from being a leading lyricist.

We broke the news about his new clothes line and he delves a little more into the subject matter and even intimates on a lighter note that he would much rather live in Naivasha than Nairobi. Why don’t you grab yourself a copy and find about the man behind Octopizzo!

Controversial jazz maestro and one time church leader Joseph Hellon has announced that he plans on writing an autobiography!

The book will be titled Cradle of My Dreams: My Life Story and is reportedly going to feature everything from birth up to the infamous “Finger of God” debacle to present.

According to Grace Kerongo the maestro says that the book will also feature a key segment that will explain his turn around from his fiasco that included Esther Arunga and her husband Quincy Timberlake whom i still refuse to believe is Nigerian to what he is right now.

And just what is he? Well by any estimations he is a man not afraid tio admit when wrong and by my book that makes him a stand-up character. Rather than go into hiding like an earthworm in the dry weather, he came out and apologised for making Kenyans have to endure the debacle and that makes him more of a man than most!

Well, for these and other exciting stories, check out his book which promises to have alot of drama, epiphanies but most of all, hard hitting truths.

This might just be the ultimate afro-fusion collabo. The best of East Africa on the same track with West Africa’s best. Eric Wainaina, one of the most highly acclaimed live performers on the continent meets a peer, Baaba Maal, on their new release.

The Senegalese singer, Baaba Maal has been a performing artist for more than 20 years, with 17 albums released in between. He has grown to become an acclaimed international artiste collaborating with Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly and even his music being featured on Hollywood blockbuster, Black Hawk Down.

Eric Wainaina is the former 5 Alive member who went on to become one of East Africa’s most acclaimed artistes, performing at numerous international concerts and festivals. The Berklee College of Music graduate has released three albums since 2001 and featured his music in half a dozen more. He was named the Best East African artiste at the 2002 Kora Awards.

Check out the duo’s collaboration in their brand new video for the song, The Road, below.
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Flamey Dice is made up of three members, Rogy, King Dru and Lorraine. Their passion in music started way back when they were still in primary school and they started doing freestyles soon after finishing high school.

They continued doing freesyles for fun but this year, they have finally decide to take music seriously. They have hit the studio and already have three tracks. They are now releasing their first official single, Ballin’.

Ballin’ is an upbeat, feel-good track about, well, balling and also announcing their debut into the world of music. The track was produced by one of the members of Flamey Dice, Rogy. Watch out for the video after the crew reunites in Mombasa for a shoot in September. Meanwhile, enjoy their first single, Ballin’.
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Upbeat hip hop music group, 2 Sleek have released a brand new track. The rappers feature singer, Keysha on their new single, Have Some.

The rap bits are more of the simple upbeat kind, the chorus is really catchy and well performed by Keysha: “I’m ready for tonight. We’re gonna have fun, sirudi nymbani till six in the morning. I’m ready for tonight.”

The song grows on me every time I listen to it. It sounds like a great track to play at a party or in the club. Check out 2 Sleek and Keysha’s Have Some below.

It looks like we have gotten to that point in the industry where genres become borderless and every artiste can experiment with other genres and even jump around on different ones.

Greg Black Rock is a rock artiste (obviously) but in his new track, Think Of Me (Can You), he features Kapella. Kapella is one of the most recognizable rappers in the hip hop group, Coola Gang. The song has that Linkin’ Park feel, with the usual singing and rap bit at the end.

Local rock songs struggle when it comes to production quality, but this one is well produced by Jt Jay. Think Of Me comes off Greg Black Rock’s Focused EP. Have a listen below.

One of Kenya’s fastest rising stars, Xtatic is about to release a new track. The Sony Music Group-signed artiste made the announcement through her Facebook last evening.

Here’s the message she put up: “ROCKSTAR4000: ‘Monday… 06.08.2012… Mark this date… It’s Xtatic Day… Something WILD! coming your way!’“

The song to be released is Wild, which will be her first single since she signed to ROCKSTAR4000 and Sony Music Group, so of course there’s a certain sense of expectation and excitement surrounding the song. Besides, Xtatic was signed when she was just breaking out in the Kenyan music scene.

To get a glimpse of what to expect, check out the teaser below.

Jaguar’s new song “Matapeli” has been out for a few weeks now. He had only released a few pictures of himself during the video shoot, and strangely enough, Mike Sonko was featured in the pictures wearing rasta dreads, leading some people to speculate about whether Jaguar was joining politics.

Well, the guessing games can stop now. It appears Sonko was simply helping Jaguar out with the shooting of his video, where Sonko appears as a mistreated shoeshiner, going along with the theme of the song (matapeli is the Kiswahili word for ‘conmen/conwomen’).

The video has been embedded below for your enjoyment. Check it out and tell me what you think…

Pulse Magazine recently ran a story claiming that former Calif Records RnB artiste, Q-Tasi had signed with Reffigah’s GrandPa Records. Q-Tasi exclusively clarified, through Ghafla!, that he had not signed with GrandPa Records. And had, in fact, signed a deal with MTech.

The earlier information had allegedly come from a GrandPa Records representative but they are now also clarifying their position on the issues. Below is a statement from the studio manager.

“Grandpa Records management would like to make things very clear and set the record straight on the issue of Q-Tasi that he’s been recording with us and about to sign a contract with us. First and foremost, Grandpa records is a very professional record label, we just dont sign anyone. And if we are to sign an artis,t we will negotiate with the artist we sign contract depending on what we agreed, and the artist will start working on his/her music when the first single to be released is ready we release it officially during the monthly Grandpa Nite and officially to the media. As per Q-Tasi, he has never done any recording at Grandpa Records and we dont have any contract with him. Our signed artists at GrandPa Records are DNA, Shamir, Masallah, Mganga Maarufu, Libby among others. Among artists who have done recordings at Grandpa Records are Ngangalito, Amileena, Prudence, K-Denk, Nazizi, J.I., Mr. Blu, Mwana FA, Lady Bee among others.“

Cannibal has dropped the video for his latest single. And it is smoking…literally. Legend is his new track where he raps about usual gangster stuff. The video portrays what looks like a chaotic  world with dark themes, like the aftermath of a war.

Cannibal is a Coast-based rapper who started off as part of the Ukoo Flani Mau Mau crew, some of the country’s pioneers of hip hop music. He later went on to cement his status in the music industry with a number of hits done with fellow Ukoo Flani member, Sharama. Cannibal recently signed a deal with M-Tech.

The clip was produced by Boomba Video and directed by Thome. Story-wise, the video is plain without an obvious plot, mostly shot in one location. There’s a few models in some of the shots and even an appearance by Sharama.
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Have you seen the latest issue of True Love?

If you haven’t, go out and get your copy NOW! Why? Why you ask? Well because this month they have a hot topic and guest star that is sure to get tongues wagging! And when you get it thank Uncle Chim Tuna! What is all this hubris about?

Well Linda Muthama is the topic of discussion! Linda Muthama for those of y’all who don’t know is a former TPF contestant but is more known for being… NYAMBANE’S SECOND WIFE!

And i’m sure you who live under a rock are in wonderment as to what the hullabaloo is all about… Well, this issue has the whole blogosphere is ablaze with talk from both sides of the divide.

The independent women are at Linda Muthama’s neck for accepting to as one blogger put it, “…taking women back to the dark days” while others are lauding her for being an honest depiction of the modern woman.

Whatever your take on this, you need to hear her stories from the horses mouth because this one is one for the analls!

Remember our Ghafla Interview with the cute Tina Kaggia some time back? Yeah, who could forget that? An awesome interview it was.

This week, the lovely but camera shy radio presenter dropped by our offices and was kind enough to take over the then on-going Q-Tasi interview and the outcome was great.

The shout-out that she dropped on us later on was the sweetest shout-out we’ve ever had. Check it out.

Mchizi Gaza is back with a loud bang (not that he had disappeared or anything). His new track is the real definition of a party song and I can’t wait for the complete video to be launched.

Mchizi Gaza is from the music group, Weusi Familia but this time he decided to go solo on this track and I’m just loving the outcome.

The track titled ‘Falling’ is already out and teaser to the video has been released to get the hype going. The video was shot by the one and only Makori TV inc. Check out the teaser below in anticipation for the launch of the entire song.

After hustling cash out of Esther’s friend, traveling to Dubai at their expense and then living in their home, Quincy Timberlake still alienated his hosts and tried to bring conflict between them and his wife. All this while, still enjoying the hospitality of their hosts. The Friend’s husband became so wary of Quincy’s deceptiveness, he stopped eating at home because he was afraid Quincy would try to poison him.

The Timberlakes on the other hand stopped talking to their hosts. They lived in the same house but they would not even say hi. Esther had told another of their Dubai friends why that was so. Apparently, she had found tablets in her bag. On approaching Quincy, he told her it was just the hosts trying to use witchcraft on them. It was obvious that he was now going to extra lengths to cast Esther’s Friend in bad light.

As the couple’s Visa expiry date approached, The Friend’s husband decided to ask Quincy about how his job search was going. Quincy said that it was going well and that he was even thinking of staying back. He also revealed that he was planning to send Esther to deliver their child in Australia. The Friend’s husband told him he would have to let them go after the expiry of their Visas since he didn’t want to break the law by housing an illegal resident.

The next day, Quincy came home saying he had extended their Visas. The Friend’s husband asked him to show him the copy. Quincy said that he had left it at Immigrations. The husband was tired of Quincy’s lies and asked him to leave if he knows he is not in the country legally. After being cornered, Quincy asks Esther to bring the Visas. She provides all three.

The husband then looked through the Visas and realized that they were still due to expire in three days. That’s when the husband put his foot down and asked Quincy to not overstay his visit and Visa. To which Quincy told Esther, “It’s obvious we’re no longer needed here.” To which the husband reiterated that he is not sending them away, he just wants to make sure they are not on the wrong side of the law, and that they don’t have to leave immediately.

In the next part, we tell you how Quincy left Dubai…if he actually did.

We had the lovely opportunity to get Q-Tasi to drop by the Ghafla office for an interview and got to know a lot about this vibrant artiste.

Better yet, we got an exclusive shout-out from him. Really awesome shout-out. Check it out.

This is about to be the latest hottest cypher to be released yet. With cyphers being released every other day these days, it would be really embarrassing for artistes to do a shady and boring cypher.

This time, Coolagang’s Kapella brought in some of the mainstream artistes for his latest cypher titled ‘Best at this Cypher’ and they did not disappoint at all. The cypher has seven rappers including, Kimya, Kayvo KForce, D.O.M, J’Mani, Bilari, Rabsari and Kapella himself.

Best at this Cypher has just been released and you get the chance to hear it right now, here at Ghafla! Find it below.

The biggest news from Calif Records right now is the beef brewing between Jua Cali and Q-Tasi. The other news revolve around the fact that most Calif Records artist have now left the recording label and are signing to others.

Q-Tasi is among those artistes that have ditched Calif and moved on. Ever since these turn of events, the relationship status between these artistes and Calif Records has been unclear. Is there beef between them? That was before we got to talk with Q-Tasi and get the real story behind it.

The cute and lovely Tina Kaggia from 1FM offered to conduct this Ghafla Interview with the now independent artist and derived some information that we (Ghafla guys) were unable to get from Q-Tasi. Tina’s charms worked magic on this guy. Who’s the man now Q-tasi?

Check out the video below and get to know Q-Tasi’s relationship status with Calif Records.

Q-Tasi and Colonel Moustapha have been chosen by drinks manufacturer, Guinness, to headline their new campaign in the Kenyan market: The Guinness Ticket To Greatness campaign. The campaign was relaunched recently after taking a break.

Reached for comment, Q-Tasi did not confirm nor deny the appointment but he had this to say, “I’m glad that things are working out. The doors are finally opening for me and I look forwad for even bigger things.”

The Ticket To Greatness campaign will see Guinness consumers get prizes and chances to win a Golden Ticket, which is the ultimate prize of Kshs. 50,000. The Golden Ticket will go to the person who shares the most inspiring story.

A not so happy Q-Tasi today walked into the Ghafla offices to clear out a rumour about him that is currently at its peak.

Apparently, a certain media house (name withheld) was fed false information from a fellow artiste and friend of Q-Tasi’s. According to this anonymous artiste, Q-Tasi has been signed to Grandpa Records and has been recording there for quite a while.

Q-Tasi came to Ghafla to set the record straight, with no intention whatsoever to go against the concerned media house, but only against the anonymous artiste.

“The only pen I’ve put on paper, is with M-Tech. I’ve not signed with any record label right now. If there’s anything about me working with anyone, the news will come directly from me,” Q-Tasi told Ghafla.

“I’ve not done any recording with Grandpa Records and I’m not signed to Grandpa Records,” he made this very clear.