By JECKONIA OTIENO
Three boys step forward, ready to entertain the gathered crowd. The audience is wild with jubilation even before the boys open their mouths.
“Track three DJ,” cuts in one boy over the microphone. The venue is packed as so many people have come to rally against teenage pregnancy.
The boy, Emmanuel Washe, 15, is in Standard Seven at Katkirieni Primary School in Chonyi village of Kilifi County.
He is the local star who is daring enough to go places with his artistic talent. He is being backed by two other boys who have his song at heart.
As big as a hangar
Washe uses the stage name Hang’a Bizo which he coined from the word ‘hangar’, the huge place where airplanes are housed, because he wants to be as big (famous) as a hangar one day.
The hit he performs on this occasion is Ukimwi Gonjwa Sugu and he begins his rap in fluent Kiswahili as his flow pulls the primary schools pupils present at the event to the stage. They dance with passion.
The songs typically take the genre of the contemporary Tanzanian Bongo Flavour only that the message is not about love; but it is about HIV/Aids.
The young man is yet to release the song but villagers are nodding their heads to the melodious rhythm.
Washe’s singing success is like a dream, he says.
“It all started as a dream when I was nine years old. While I slept, I felt the words of my very first song flow into me,” he confesses.
Crazy Monday
Home & Away
Eve Woman
Generation Next
Sunday Magazine
