Unashig: Healthcare Service at Your Doorstep, in the Time of Covid-19

In this global-scale and unprecedented time of Covid-19, with the mandatory "social distancing" rule imposed by governments and embraced by individuals, families and communities all around the world, Unashig's health insurance underwriter, UAP OldMutual, is offering a new service to all insured individuals, families and groups in Nairobi and presumably other cities and towns in Kenya -- including 76 Unashig Members. 

The service is branded Healthcare at Your Doorstep. It has three components, as follows:
1)    Med On Wheels: This service will deliver medicine at your doorstep based on the  prescription which you share via a specified WhatsApp number or email address.
2)    Cellphone consultations with a doctor available at a specified mobile phone number.
3)    Counselling Session: This service will be offered via another dedicated mobile phone number.  

For Details, Tap This Link: Healthcare at your doorstep

Sieke ~ Haiku

Heavy-laden clouds
Massing over Nai-robi.
A late April pounce.

MUSIC (Kenya): Rosa's InSide, feat Naiboi

InSide is a new club banger released in January 2018. It is a very "Nairobi" kind of song, but with a universal metropolitan beat. It is a "something new ...something borrowed" sort of moment. Rosa, the lead singer, is patently a new kid on the block -- I'd never seen or heard (of) her before this. She's so suddenly on the scene, and so fresh, she's literally improbable. But, out of the blue, here she is -- seamlessly layering her lyrical lines with phrases in English, Eastlands Swahili and Dholuo. 

With a mellow voice, she sings like a reigning star, back from a sabbatical she's not been around enough to earn. But her talent reveals itself and puts all queries to rest. Her tone and comportment suggest that where ever she's been -- here and even there, in the diaspora of one kind or another -- have all been good for (and to) her. She's hit the Nairobi musical scene with a sophisticated bang. She has great looks too, let's not beat about the bush, and uses both voice and cultured body with restrained self-confidence -- and to great effect. We're all the richer.

Naiboi joins her in this funky and disarming song, and I'm guessing that it is she who approached him for the song -- he being the more intricately networked in these parts. Not a bad choice if you have tracked his artistic progression and steep learning curve in the last couple of years or so. The song's title is InSide, but he makes it sound like a broken insider -- inisaida, in fact. No, there's no subliminal messaging there that I can pin down -- just a verbal prank helped along by a difficult set of syllables.

Click here to watch the video clip

Michael Cohen: Donald Trump's Lawyer

Images of Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, on the street make New York life so, so not charming no more. He walks down the street like he's given up on the job market, and doesn't care about the traffic code. 

He walks back into the high-rise with an 'unkempt' umbrella in the middle of the day, sort of, like he's giving up on life, already. 

He's downcast and not truly forward leaning and carries a plastic bag. Hey, we don't do that in Nairobi now. The Kanjoo (or NEMA) will catch you and teach you a thing. Worse, the bag is only a third full and wouldn't feed a hungry and lonesome and not-yet-bald eaglet up the (ill) wind-swept and ransacked loft.

Partial Exhibit (MSNBC's Set 1): Video 1
Partial Exhibit (Broad Spectrum): Video 2
Partial Exhibit (MSNBC's Set 2): Video 3

MUSIC (Kenya): Nairobi by Mayonde feat Stonee Jiwe

Sunny Nairobi City has a worthy, and just as sunny, champion in Mayonde and her co-singer, Stonee Jiwe -- who is obviously at peace rapping and lingering in the video clip's less-lit places. Their 2017 song of Nairobi was a risky conception, but the duo has swept all that aside -- with great cheer(fulness) and unabashed love for their city. The team, of two, certainly doesn't pander to any powers that be -- unlike Mbilia Bel, whose Nakei Nairobi blatantly and sadly did.

The video clip doesn't quite have the tell-tale grandeur of Olamide's own Lagos. And one gets the sense that Mayonde and Stonee unwittingly undersell Nairobi here, even as Mayonde's smiles and upbeat 'manner' hug everyone in, and out of, sight with unrestrained enthusiasm. 

Still, Mayonde looks good and has the presence of a worthy ambassador. She's going to be an influencer, for sure. So much potential. She mentions in the song many of the place-names that dot and map out the city -- more than well enough for those who are already its living markers in those very same locales that she mentions (and more): South C, South B, 111, Westie, Kangemi, Dondii (!), Bama, Buru Buru, Mathare, Kawangware. You see in that list the places that the spirit is comfy with. And so be it. 

Images of downtown Nairobi are sort of flipped through, though, and rushed in the clip. Many are seen in the dimming light of a rapidly retreating evening. What the Director had in mind only the Director knows. But one thing is in no doubt at all in all of this: Mayonde does love her city. She clearly prefers the peri(er) sides; but that's OK, too. Comparisons between her Nairobi  (see the video at the link given below) and Jua Cali's Karibu Nairobi are bound to be made.

"I love my city
O yes I do,
Na na na Nairobi" ~ Mayonde declares

Click to watch her do Nairobi thing

KooKoo by Elani

Happy to have Elani's wonderful voices featured here, in this 2014 song. As accomplished and inspired as any group, Elani (Kenya's very own) sings KooKoo in a mellow and marvelously appealing tone for all to hear and be moved by. 

Click to watch the KooKoo video 

It's a charming ballad, a soaring love song, in calm and collected but occasionally super-charged streets of downtown Nairobi. Much Love rends Iborian air, again and again right now (in this fine and romantic song) -- sung in both English and Swahili -- and all because of them.

Here are the lyrics

Ya Nini by Alicios ft. Khaligraph Jones

Ya Nini, sung in both Swahili and Lingala as well as some English, is a fusion of rap (infused with Sheng) and a rousing version of Lingala Pop. It is a sort of Eastlands Love matter. That's Nairobi's Eastlands, where Africa comes to live together.

Click to watch the video

Alicios provides here a tune that excites and distinguishes. It's moderately fast-paced, and will easily prompt folks to the dance floor. The lyrics are defiant, too. She is so so not into folks out to scuttle love, as though (kama) it's ever a one-sided affair -- "kama ndoto si ya wawili". 

Khaligraph Jones is content to give the essential vocal back-up here, and to lend his always-magnetic presence. The invisible guitarist adds lots of magic into the whole mix.


You may also wish to watch:
1. Posa ya Bolingo by Alicios

2. Micasa Sucasa by Khaligraph Jones ft. Cashy

Smartphones, Blogs and Websites: IoT in the Pocket, and Everywhere

Going by the accepted definition of The Internet of Things, the Smartphone is an underrated or neglected but integral node in IoT, even though it's hand-held. Ama? Let's face it, security agencies know this only too well, and profit from it in day-to-day surveillance and "The War" -- against everyTHING.

By the same token, every website and every blog and every such Thing which is set up to transmit and receive and even autonomously respond to certain signals 24/7 -- that is, without active participation by the 'owner' -- is an IoT sender, receiver or terminal/terminator.

Anecdote:
In an apparent lapse in mobile-phone (not necessarily smartphone) transmission protocols nearly a decade ago now, I believe, 'everyone' in Nairobi began receiving messages on their phones about their 'current' locations. It was 'worse' for motorists. Whenever you turned into the next road or street, you got the message. We, collectively, didn't like the idea that Big Brother was trailing, and knew exactly where we were at any moment. I was personally more intrigued than upset, actually.

There was a public outcry, and the 'glitch' was sorted out soon enough. Everyone was relieved. Glitch? No, "Back To The Future." Nowadays, of course, most Kenyans who follow the news know that individuals -- law-abiding or 'criminal' -- can be tracked by security authorities through their phones.

Octopizzo's TBT

TBT is another rap creation by the self-assured, self-loving -- and above-all self-made -- Octopizzo. His base is in Nairobi's Kibra, that famously sprawling slum. A large portion of his allusions are to slum-life, and associated experiences. Much of that experience was full of angst. But he's clearly an awesome overcomer. 

Click here to watch the video

The fine video production we see in TBT hints at a life lived now, perhaps, in a perpetual verbal and physical swag -- indeed, boastfulness -- outside of that expansive slum. "See where I am now, where I've gotten to" seems to be his mantra. 

And, of course, it's worth reminding his erstwhile detractors, who had thought he wouldn't amount to much, where he's gotten to. But that attitude can spill beyond necessary restraint and humility, particularly regarding material things and the need to respect others, in particular struggling peers.

TBT shows off "WuoNyaboro" SlumBoy in a bling-bling frame of mind, living the good life in finest threads and just as finely finished living spaces fit for his spanking convertible and more -- and so far away from the hood he'll never forget. 

I suspect that lots of his peers can't get over all of this. And I'm thinking that the kimnadhoo they're having right now isn't lost on him. He shouldn't rub it in. I'm thinking that many want to be just like him. All we want is more fine, and even finer, music from him. That's his calling.

[You're a top-of-the-hill role model now, Octopizzo. Remember that, as you live the life. That shouldn't be difficult: You had the courage to remain in Kibra during the 2017 post-election violence]

Music (Congo): Mpongo Love's Forever-Love ~ "Ndaya"

Without premeditation, I think, Ndaya exposes for us something truly deep about all our tropical lives: Life, which was at once too long and long enough for all its troubles (and for the designs it might allow), was mostly a life bathed in melody in all our singing, even in the hardest of times -- and through all the horrors. 

There would be enough (drum)beat to dance to, for sure, and necessary harmony and verve -- and even noise. But it was melody which kept us going. It was the main flavor. Here's how Ndaya abbreviates it all for us -- in the context of 'her own' "troubles of milieu".

LISTEN/READ: The Audio/Lyrics of Mpongo Love's "Ndaya"


Watch: The video of Mpongo Love's "Bakake"

In Nairobi's Eastlands where I grew up, folks did love Mpongo Love, dearly. It was the melody in her voice. It was the love and poesy embedded in her very name. It was all the 'surround' chatter.

MUSIC: Gabu's 'No Spine' Allegory

No Spine is a fine piece of music by rappin' Gabu and co (all Kenyans). He delivers his lines with the cerebral poise of a seasoned poet, or troubadour. He strings his words and allusions, and all that Nairobi slang, with fine care. And he makes them play -- in your ears and psyche -- just as much as the dancing girls do. If not more -- if you're not distracted by all that "no spine" twerking. 

Click here to watch the video of No Spine

This is super-creative word-play. The muse's magic is at work here, behind the curtain. The band fires up all the goings-on with laid-back  but sure-handed egging. It's a feast! Credit, too, to Unlimited LA, the Director. 

Here's a write-up on Gabu, Kristoff et al

Music: Big Shaq's "Man's Not Hot"

Big Shaq ain't Shaq (Shaquille O'Neal) by any stretch. But, by some accounts, Shaq suspects that Big Shaq is belittling him; insinuating that Shaq ain't 'hot' (that is, "cool") or big enough (that is, big) any more. What's more, he's scheming rather loudly to take Shaq's inalienable name -- even if the scheming 'alien' is the newly-arrived Big Shaq himself. Meanwhile, Big Shaq markets his brand as not hot at all -- as never hot, in fact; but rather, by some kind of super-providential twist(er), Shaq's ordained successor -- nay, 're-placer'. He's never hot. Whatever winter threads he wears, he can never be hot, he claims -- even sitting in the summer sun. He can never be hotter than the sun, which anyone can sit in! It's all so very confusing, even to Big Shaq -- and so, so fun. He, Big Shaq, has arrived -- but only to throw us all into a Black Hole which devours any enlightenment that veers too close to it.

Incidentally, Big Shaq -- born and raised in the UK to Ghanaian parents (his real name is Michael Dapaah) -- looks and, in some way, raps as if he's Kenya's very own Khaligraph Jones' twin (or double) -- or vice versa (view KJ's Nataka Iyo Doh). Perhaps the twain shall meet one of these days -- In Nairobi, or London.

Big Shaq has till now been better known, of course, as an irresistibly 'roguish', feather-ruffling comedian with an intimidating presence (when he wants to scare). He's become a rapper, certainly in his Man's Not Hot life, but maintains his "resistance" to all speculation. But he seems set to continue rapping in the 'after' of that particular life. The adulation he's obviously enjoyed with the release of the rap in 2017 is too tempting to walk away from. We'll be watching whatever space we can track him down to.

WATCH VIDEO: Man's Not Hot

Man's Not Hot is unvarnished rap. But is it a song, let alone pop song, to qualify for inclusion and ranking among pop songs? Here's one answer: S/He who raps sings. Rap is a form of singing. It has become plainly so in the music industry, in our time. Rap is singing in undertones, so to speak, but not at the expense of the overtones associated with the typical song. Singing is sugarcoated talk. Rap is rapid-fire, sugarcoated talk: "Skrrahh! Pap, pap, ka-ka-ka!" Moreover, it is helpful that, nowadays, rapping almost invariably has instrumental accompaniment of one mix or another. Singing an sich doesn't have to be so accompanied, but pop songs do. Rap is pop, then. He (Big Shaq) raps, therefore he sings. The instrumental music that runs in the background throughout the song is distinctly refined in tone and commands respectful audience-attention. The rapping practically turns into a subliminal rhapsody!

All this despite the fact that Big ShaQ mixes the sugar with ample gutter diction, which I hadn't quite realized till I read and re-read the lyrics and saw their graphical representations. We can do without that; but perhaps I'm talking only for prudish, older folks. Big Shaq's spoken English is far from Chaucerian, but still has things I didn't grasp. Yet not grasping never stopped us across sub-Sahara from loving the many foreign and African songs that we listened to and loved in our youth. Songs have a certain inner-outer pull.

READ: Man's Not Hot Lyrics (no graphics here)

I think that the most magical and mind-blowing part of Man's Not Hot (at once a "raw and cooked" song), is when Big Shaq gets that bobbing and heaving and frenzied multitude of fans to respond to his "Skrrahh!" in one big-family chorus, and so unexpectedly,) with: "Pap, pap, ka-ka-ka!" 

All that stream-of-consciousness chanting of mysterious and bewitching words (including supposedly African-origin monosyllables already distorted after just one incomplete generation) -- which would have greatly dismayed Kunta Kinte -- truly adds to the churn of sentiment and to existential charm, as well as to some sort of audience-awakening across the waters: 

"Skrrahh!

Skidiki-pap-pap!

And a pu-pu-drrrr-boom!

Skya

Du-du-ku-ku-[tun-tun]-pun-pun!

Poom, poom". 

Big Shaq brings the crowd face-to-face with creative possibilities hardly imagined till his sudden landing on the stage. In that sense he is truly one of a kind. Still, if you've read the commentaries, you'll know that his watchers and adorers already worry that, as a singer, with a persona which insists on deep winter-wear in the heat of summer, he's a shooting star -- an asteroid -- condemned to soon dis-appear from the glare of our telescopic but seasonal attention. 

Victoria Street ~ Haiku

O rickety pic!
A strange wind of nostalgia
It blows. Back and forth!









#KenyanHistory pic.twitter.com/hNqy5GYM7q

JKIA: Jomo Kenyatta International Airport ~ Eastern Africa's Gateway to the World

News broke on Feb 23rd, 2017 that relevant US authorities had, after long and (for us) frustrating scrutiny, finally granted Category One Status to Kenya's gateway to global air travel. Kenya thus becomes the eighth (or ninth) African country with (or which have had) direct flights to the US. The others are: 

Cape Verde: Obtained Category One status in 2003 and inaugurated Direct flights to Boston in July 2005 (see Dillingher, 2009: 11).

Egypt: Information about the current status of direct flights between Egypt and the US seems uncertain (but read this). Egypt has certainly had direct air links with the West, including the US, over many decades. However, Middle Eastern politics has often intervened.

Ethiopia: Daily non-stop flights between Ethiopia and the US (Bole-Dulles) began in December 2010. Prior to that, flights from Addis Ababa to the US were not so direct, as planes needed to stop over at an airport along the way -- initially in Dublin and latterly in Rome. On the other hand, eastbound flights from the US to Ethiopia seem to have had, for a considerable period of time, the clearance for direct flight. 

READ ALSO: A History of Ethiopian Airlines

Ghana: Had Category One status, lost it, and is currently trying to regain it. 

Morocco: Only Royal Air Maroc (RAM), which entered the airline business in 1957, currently operates direct commercial flights between Morocco and the US. This direct US flight began in 1975. Petitioners recently launched a campaign to get American carriers to operate on the route in order to put an end to unacceptable levels of service by RAM. 

Nigeria: Direct flights between the US and Murtala Mohamed International Airport (MMIA) in Ikeja, Lagos, resumed in 2010, ending a suspension which had begun in 1993.

Senegal: Dakar Airport, now LSSIA, has been a strategic stopover/link for flights to and from the US, South America, South Africa, North Africa and Europe since around 1942.

South Africa: Retained its Category One status in January 2008, in the run-up to the FIFA World Cup of 2010, which the country hosted (See SA Civil Aviation Authority, 2008). 

ALSO READ: Gerald L. Dillinger (2009: 1-19)

READ: Kenyan airport attain category one status, key to non-stop US flights A BACKGROUNDER: Passengers to gain as Sh 4.6bn upgrade takes off

As already pointed out, Category One status allows for direct flight from JKIA to a US destination -- and vice versa. Atlanta (Georgia) has frequently been mentioned the likely touchdown city for Kenyan flights.  But the really cool and emblematic destination for our national airline, Kenya Airways (KQ), would be New York City. That would constitute a branding opportunity for KQ of incalculable value. 

Kenya's premier international airport, JKIA, is the nation's pride. After several false-starts and inexplicable bouts of mismanagement and loss of corporate vision, it is ready for big time. But false starts and corporate failures are not the main reasons for this delay. Four more fundamental factors can be suggested:

1. The 24 years of President Moi's rule were marked by a near complete disinterest in major infrastructural investments of any kind (Dillingher, 2009: 11 alludes to this problem). Real change only began during Mwai Kibaki's presidency in 2003. Roads were given first priority. Seaports and airports then followed. Other mega infrastructural initiatives have recently followed during Uhuru Kenyatta's tenure: power lines, pipelines, the iconic SGR project and, of course, the JKIA upgrade.

2. As one can see in the list of countries with direct flights to the US, it can also be inferred that crucial pressure for Category One status must have come from within the US itself. Morocco, for example, was for much of the 20th century a favorite holiday destination for US glitterati and other Americans. Senegal was of great logistical value for the US in both war and peace.

3. Most of the Sub-Saharan African countries with early direct flights -- Cape Verde, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal -- are to the west of the continent, nearer to the US and, as we have see, with crucial logistical value. Moreover, they have deep historical ties with the US, going back to the era of the slave trade. Liberia should have been in this category, but plainly did not have the resources to be a leading player here. Roots, a book published in 1979, unleashed unprecedented interest in Africa (but particularly West Africa) and irresistible pressure, particularly from the US Black community, for resources to facilitate closer people-to-people ties -- and hence for direct and sustained Africa-US flights.

4. The threat of Al Shabaab terrorism, and Kenya's early inability to deal effectively with it, offered little motivation for a direct air-link between Nairobi and a US city.

CLICK HERE TO SEE: Images of JKIA -- With Nothing Tucked Away
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CONGOLESE MUSIC: Tabu Ley's (Rochereau's) Mokolo Nakokufa

We liked this song, in what seems now like the very, very distant past. It is quite to be loved even now, though the new converts will not, cannot, remember the old memories which were an integral part of its (and our) social and cultural, and also historical, milieu. That is the fate of all Golden Oldies, and so it goes -- on and on. 

Tabu Ley (a.k.a Rochereau) was like the lovable uncle we were happy to hang, aurally, around. We made only one demand on him -- that he make us happy. He came through most of the time, as I remember. And that was more than enough, there in Nairobi's expansive Eastlands.

MUSIC AND CITYSCAPES: Jua Cali's Nairobi, Olamide's Lagos

In their wide-ranging article of January 27th, 2015 titled "Songs About Cityscapes," Dorothy Lynskey et al reviewed some 47 songs about cities around the globe. One of these, in Congolese, was Mbilia Bel's Nakei Nairobi -- later released in Swahili as Twende Nairobi (that is Let's go to Nairobi).

About three weeks after the publication of the Lynskey et al article -- on February 20, 2015 to be precise -- Jua Cali, a leading light (and brand) in Kenya's music fraternity, released a video of his own song for Nairobi titled Karibu Nairobi (Welcome to Nairobi). In spirit, it vaguely reminds you of one of its precursors -- Will Smith's 2011 song, Miami; but the two are literally worlds apart. Here, below, it is:


Video of Karibu Nairobi


About a year and a half later, Nigerian artiste Olamide Baddo also released a video (shown below) honoring his own city of Lagos.


Click here for his I Love Lagos video

So we have in our hands now a tale of two cities, so to speak. That is: Nairobi and Lagos. What do we make of them?

The musicality of Olamide's offering is there for all to hear. The tunes and tones are more refined than one gets in Jua Cali's. And yet, if you really want to get a quick visual picture of Lagos and Nairobi, Jua Cali's video is more extensive and less tinted; and so more revealing. And so more rewarding. It's not surprising that each of those terrains is cast on a much larger canvas than Wizkid's neighborhood (mtaa, in Swahili) of Ojuelegba, which nevertheless has a charm of its own.

But Olamide's 'hides' the seams -- by highlighting the 'fun' images. It's more motivated by the urge to counter those memes and naysayers that he feels needlessly and perhaps maliciously (if not snootily) put Lagos down. It demands respect for his city, and seeks to steer the narrative a certain way. Not necessarily a bad thing.

READ: "POLITICS, URBAN DESIGN AND MUSC: To Love or Not to Love Lagos ~ Singer Olamide's Take" by Mauri Yambo

Jua Cali's simply 'rides roughshod' over and across the "raw and the cooked" slices of the cityscape. One senses that he is, that he feels, so much a part of the scene that he cannot 'hide' or peel off any part of it without concealing or stripping down his own Genge self. He celebrates all that his city (and he) stands for -- warts and all. Not necessarily a bad thing, either.

You be the judge.


PS: Nairobi has been a favorite city for Congolese musicians for decades. It has always been requited love, going back at least to the beginning of the Sixties. Here's what Phiona Okumu, one of the co-authors of "Songs About Cityscapes", said about Nairobi's attractiveness to Congolese musicians:

"When Congo's economy nosedived [in the late-Seventies] and Kinshasa's once-thriving music industry fell to ruin as a result, many of its music performers and producers migrated to cities like Nairobi where the demand for Congolese bands was high, as were the prospects for a decent living."

Alicios in a Poignant Posa Ya Bolingo

The title of Alicios' poignant song, Posa Ya Bolingo, is best translated, I think, as A Yearning for Love. Bolingo is a commonly-used word in popular Lingala songs. Lingala is a language widely spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Bolingo is admittedly a truly lovely and such a musical word for that lovely thing we know as Love. Even Love itself, as a word, pales in comparison. I dare say that the Swahili words for Love -- Pendo, or Penzi -- are Bolingo's worthy 'rivals'.

Click here to watch the Posa Ya Bolingo video

While Posa... literally means a yearning, a longing or a desire..., I think that after you've read Alicios' account of her family's desperate flight (while she was still a little girl) from the outbreak of armed combat across the DRC, and more specifically in her hometown of Goma in Eastern DRC -- to the relative safety of Nairobi City in distant Kenya -- you will begin to get more complex vibes, and allusions, from her high-emotion but tearless song (which she published on October 2, 2013). 

On the one hand, it is the loss, the seemingly utter loss, of her capacity for love that she moans -- whatever its cause. On the other hand, it is on her male partner she trains her blame for all the misery and the incapacity she feels, seeing all the pain as something he has caused her. Goma and DRC more generally seem to be a profoundly connecting factor, though, whichever way you look.

What we'll have to figure out in our different ways is whether the partner of whom she sings is a real character (personified or 'acted' by the man in the video) recollected from a past love she'd rather forget now, a fictionalized one used only for the purposes of weaving a pure artistic narrative, or the symbol of a real and much more terrifying and existential power she and her family once encountered, there in Goma. 

What is certain, in the meantime, is that Alicios sings of the absence, the loss indeed, of a love she once felt -- and which was love. Confoundingly, she also sings about it, about this pain of loss, in a truly lovely and even loving way. You would have thought that such cruelty as she narrates and such melodic tones and love as accompany the telling could not possibly be twin-products of the same state of mind -- but they are! And, I know for sure, the melody and the tone and the love will endure in our memories; as will the images of Alicios in that video.

READ: Kenya-based Congolese Singer Alicios Theluji Makes a Comeback

ALSO READ: Peter Oduor's "Up Close and Candid with Alicios Theluji..."

CLICK: 1. Posa Ya Bolingo Lyrics (With Swahili Translation)

                2. Posa Ya Bolingo Lyrics (With English Translation)

MUSIC: Awilo Longomba is Back in Nairobi After a 13-Year Absence

Maestro Awilo Longomba is back in Nairobi this weekend, after an absence of thirteen years. His visit gives us the excuse to do at least two things:

The first is to have a glance at the Congolese legacy in African music today, and at Awilo's life and times (concerning both which watch Madowo's video interview below, and click on this link: Patoranking's Make Am and the Congolese legacy in African music).

WATCH: Longomba's conversation with NTV's Larry Madowo

The second thing we can do is look again at a selection of his own blockbusters -- this humble, enigmatic man with a towering stage presence -- in order to renew our appreciation of his massive contribution to both African music and African performative arts (see links i - v below):

i. Longomba's Karolina (2006) 

ii. Longomba's Enemy Solo (ft. PSquare) was one of Africa's Top 5 Happiest Songs of the Year, 2015 ~ Yambo Selection 2015

iii. Dansi Tu: Bundelele by Awilo Longomba + Azinne Asinugo

iv. Awilo Longomba - Cache Cache (2015)

v. Awilo Longomba - Coupé Bibamba (2014)

UPDATED: Evening of Sunday, November 27, 2016

Siege and Paper Memories

May 9th 2016 was the date that CORD (Coalition for Reform and Democracy), Kenya's opposition coalition, had set for another demonstration at -- another siege of -- the IEBC (Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission) offices in Anniversary Towers, on University Way -- just across the road from the iconic gate of the Main Campus of the University of Nairobi (UoN). So what you first see in the picture-frame of the video below (taken at just about the moment ten turned to eleven am) is the UoN fraternity at the gate, witnessing the build-up to the promised demo. The squat building just inside the campus -- at the far left, next to the gate -- is the office of the students' union, SONU. Legend has it that many decades ago, in colonial Kenya, it served as the mortuary for early Nairobi Africans. The large building to the right is Hyslop Building. The smaller structure next to it is Science Building. The Fountain of Knowledge is farther to the right, well out of sight in this frame of (the camera person's) mind -- and in the order and coming disorder of the day.

Back to the picture-frame: Barricading University Way -- as if laying preemptive siege on a single-minded horde that's yet to arrive for its own siege -- and looking west, is but one contingent of the Riot Police, in full gear, mobilized for the occasion and recently re-tooled for rapid, and potentially vicious, crowd control. There are dancers, too -- CORD's passionate ramming rod for such events -- in the street, just in front of the police vehicles, slyly whipping up the passions, raising its very body heat and flexing its soft underbelly and easy to read power. But you can't see them in the still. You simply have to take it from the chronicler.

IMAGES: Of Siege

I'm just thinking: Harry Thuku -- Besigye's precursor, to a degree -- never had such abundance of attention and such seasoned avant garde when he was arrested in 1922, nearly a century ago and less than half a kilometer away, across what is now the Main Campus. But he has a road to his name now. So the Main Campus is triangulated by three roads: Harry Thuku Road, University Way and Uhuru Highway (which by some sort of sleight-of-hand belongs to Kenya's current President). UoN shares the triangle with the National Theatre, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, some offices of the British Council, and a Synagogue that somehow always remains invisible even to those who routinely see, better still sense, it. Some would argue that Harry Thuku Road actually runs through the Main Campus, slicing the engineering sciences and certain varsity sections off the triangle -- of which, nonetheless, they are an integral part.

Mothers Day having just gone by uneventfully on Sunday, no one was seriously expecting to see the Mother Of All this Monday -- the Mother of All Demonstrations. Still, there was palpable suspense all over here, and, as I gathered, all over town. Suspense but hardly fear. Clear anticipation of some version of blood, sweat and tears.

In the calm before the storm, I casually walked by, by the tail of the beast, but did not escape the unblinking eye of the camera. The picture-frame stirs into motion when you press play, and plays. Over and over as often as you press. Which is what one did later that evening, not knowing what one was about to come upon oneself. And then one saw oneself. Out of body. Look!

Look, I later shouted out in a tweet, to no one in particular (which is how it is in Twitterverse), "The man casually crossing 2ward #KoinangeSt in a white shirt, a briefcase in his left hand, is Yours Truly"

Look!

HERE: The tweet exchange that Nyar gi Jommo and I had following that exclamation


Now, back to earth: 

UoN may be at the edge of downtown Nairobi, but it's the city's intellectual epicentre, much to the chagrin of those who are chagrined. Over the years, too, politicians of various persuasions have gravitated toward it, seeking to tap into the idealistic energy and numerical power of its student "form of life" -- or to smother it with sanctimonious flabberghast. When UoN students get in a foul mood, the whole city sits up -- with a little shudder, perhaps, which is not of course how it's supposed to be. The academics, on the other hand, have quietly gone about the business of advancing disciplines and growing careers, under difficult circumstances. In the process they have raised UoN's global profile to surprising heights, without really sensing how their individual inputs add up to this. Yet much of this fuzzy input remains to be added still.

READ:  Can the University Help Make Better Cities?

The location of IEBC offices on University Way was not without expected though unstated collateral benefit to CORD's protest organizers. This despite the fact that UoN students were only recently back after some three weeks of forced closure -- just prior to which a disaffected faction had burned the insides of that very SONU office I have alluded to, perhaps thereby, with subliminal intent, 'cremating' its mortuary past, at last. Moreover, end-of-semester exams were beginning this very same week. When I crossed, then, it was the calm before the gas and water storm that could only be guessed at ahead of time. You could sense it, even downtown. The calm did come to a teary coda.

WATCH: Gas and Water Storm I

WATCH: Gas and Water Storm II

Here's @NyargiJommo's impressive picture of the day


I remember.

I remember back in 1968 when we demonstrated against 'Russian' occupation of sovereign Czechoslovakia, a country which doesn't exist anymore in the form(ation) that we fought for. A few of us highly motivated student types, members of NUKS (National Union of Kenya Students) -- which ceased to exist decades ago too, but whose Secretary for Foreign Affairs I was that year -- walked a few streets (including Kenyatta Avenue) one morning in downtown Nairobi, in holy but momentary anger and baby-boomer disgust at the occupation and the abduction of Alexander Dubcek, leader of The Prague Spring. A contingent of uniformed but unarmed police walked closely behind us, uttering not a word, the better to keep the peace -- which was under no threat. Hardly any of us knew how to pronounce Czechoslovakia, and so there was a cacophony of pronunciations -- which was fun in itself and an eye-opening reward for the marching.

The city hardly knew that there was a student procession that morning, unless you happened somehow to be nearby, until we, brave souls, appeared on national TV that night, in black and white. Alors, there were more policemen than students there on that grand occasion! It was the policemen (seemingly) who were demonstrating, and we students paving the way -- forward. Hilarity! I don't know if that video still exists at KBC. It would be fun to see it again. There was no KTN in those days, you may recall. Nor no NTV. I think if you saw the video you'd chuckle too. And perhaps shout: There goes the prof, again! It would be to be back to the future.

I remember.

I remember back in 2002 when we marched from Kombewa to Holo, in Kisumu Rural Constituency, to protest against the rigging of party elections through the eleventh-hour "direct nomination" of one of the aspirants for the Parliamentary seat. Nobody at headquarters in Nairobi listened, and there was no structure to besiege at Holo. We were too far away to have impact. A number of those who made the decision were expected to be on University Way this May 9th, and did indeed show up -- to fight against rigging and that sort of thing. The irony was palpable, but that's how things often are.

And so I crossed University Way and ran some errands, away from the camera's wide angle -- unaware for the 'moment' that I had not escaped capture.









UPDATED: May 14, 2016; May 16, 2016.

David Bowie, RIP

In his earlier years, David Bowie always had this distinctive other-worldly mane, mien, persona --  which you couldn't forget. Which is how we got to know him. He was, without a doubt, The Man Who Fell To Earth -- which is how I mostly remember him -- and who ended up marrying an earthling: a  Somali, 'Kenyan' (as we thought for a while), African -- who once walked the pavements of Nairobi City like many of us, who do it proudly. We who were amazed when he snatched her, Supermodel Iman, for a wife.

Here, a trailer of The Man... (a movie which I watched soon after its release, I think, while at U of I, Urbana-Champaign, those long-gone days):

But when I try to think of the songs of his that I really remember him for, nothing of clarity comes to mind; but, instead, puzzingly, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. But they were both in the same artistic space, I think; and I do remember his carefully cultivated androgynous looks of the earlier years.

David Bowie died earlier today. RIP!

His deed is done
He's gone back up
Now.