| About Me |
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In the Mid eighties it was still there as I can remember, we still danced around fires, sang, telling and listening to stories when the sun set. During the months of Ramadhan, youths from other villages would also visit neighboring villages like ours with drums, dancing and chanting old Swahili songs that I can still remember. We wore masks and kanzus too, and this would attract attention from fellow youths and even parents who came out of their houses to see us. In the Mijikenda community, people always sang happy songs in all occasions. It didn’t matter when one dies, marries or even when a new born comes. This tradition I believe is the one that led me to becoming a Swahili jazz artist. As you know Mombasa and the Coast at large is occupied by mixture of Arabs, Asians and the Mijikenda people who then formed the Swahilis. My parents were poor and so we shared the same slum village with fellow less privileged persons, but that would not discourage me from perusing my ambitions. So I decided that first I should complete high school to have some knowledge and I did so. I studied at Tudor high school in Mombasa after Makande primary. My parents could not fund me through high school, so my last two years I had to pay my own school fees by doing singing shows on weekends at various entertainment spots. I loved Bob Marley a lot, not only for his music, but his biography. It made me believe that even myself I could become as legend as him. I still listen and love his music. My father played guitar in local pubs but he never had time to teach us the music or any positive sides of music. Perhaps it’s because he was always drunk and since he never made it, he didn’t feel that it was a good career for us. But music was already inside my blood and it could not be hidden. So “Uncle Nashon” after noticing it decided to teach me how to play the sax, his reason being that, my father had been very kind to him in those olden days and that’s the best way he could payback. I loved the instrument and so in 1998 while in my forth form I started learning the sax. The following year I was only twenty but was already playing with Santa Ngoma band in Mombasa. The band played in hotels but also had their own songs. The following year I joined the most popular band at the coast province known as Bango Sounds. The founder of the band, who is also my mentor, played his compositions all night long in his gigs and had very sweet sax arrangements. This was the time I learned more sax, how to compose, to lead a band and other things in life. Playing with him made me famous too and in the year 2001 I was spotted by Them mushrooms band and they called me to Nairobi to replace their then outgoing band leader, Teddy Kalanda. After playing with them mushrooms for one year, I owned my full band equipments when Mr. Albert Attias felt that I had a talent that needed to be nurtured. I formed my Tutu Band and that’s when the second phase of my career started. With the Tutu band, I went on being selected as one of the best upcoming afro-fusion artists in my country in 2005, performed before my president in 2006.My song sukari, which was my first to compose, became a hit and since then I never looked back. I’m doing concerts and aiming to tour the whole world spreading messages of peace, love, unity and everything else that is positive. That’s what I believe musicians are for. My first Album Kimombasa took me almost three years to record but I finally launched it in July 2008.Lyrics in my album are real stories and experiences gathered over the years. I believe that I’m another Fella Kuti or Hugh Masekella or even Manu De Bango in the making and so I will not stop till I finish this job. Life can be so sweet when we have everlasting peace and unity and I’m here to play my part of bringing people together. |
