Did G-Wiji’s life imitate his art?

“Naishi leo ni kama hakuna kesho … masiri zinakuweka kwa hatari halafu inakuwa ulipata heart attack ama accident ya gari… unasifiwa ulikuwa mpoa ukishadedi (I live today like there is no tomorrow… secrets that put your life in danger; then it is said that you died of a heart attack or a road accident… They will sing your praise when you die; that you were a good man)."

Those are the words of Mashifta rapper G-Wiji in his hard-hitting song Pesa, Pombe, Siasa na Wanawake.

In a curious case of life imitating art, the life and death of G-Wiji is like something he would have rapped about; death through a hit-and-run accident, only for his decomposing body to be discovered on a cold concrete slab at the City Mortuary.

Weird still is a line in their breakout hit System ya Majambazi, where his co-rapper Kitu Sewer spit out the following line: "Gari zinaongeza mbio zikikukaribia (vehicles accelerate as they approach you).

“Did the accident vehicle accelerate as it approached G-Wiji, who, it was said was crossing the Thika Superhighway; or had he consumed one too many that he did not see the on-rushing vehicle?

These are questions we might never get answers to now that G-Wiji is no more, but suffice it to say that had he still been alive, the Dandora-based rapper would have come up with a most eloquent take on hit-and-run victims, who mostly come from poor backgrounds,  and the troubles their families undergo; not knowing whether, when they are finally found, they would be dead or alive.

His death marks a sad chapter in the continuing saga of artistes from Dandora, who broke into the scene with so much verve and promise at the dawn of the new millennium, only to fizzle off the stage with barely a whimper.

The Nairobian recently ran a story detailing the shocking reversal of fortunes of Kalamashaka, the forerunner of Ukoo Flani Mau Mau, a group that threatened to put Dandora rappers on the world map, reduced to squalour by embracing the very vices they sang against.

Mashifta was part of the larger Ukoo Flani Mau Mau that had seen its influence spread as far as the Kenyan coast and even to Tanzania.

It did not have to end this way for G-Wiji, who in better days had rapped of making it big in the rapping world and riding around in a Mercedes limousine.

In probably his last media interview, a tipsy looking G-Wiji admonishes modern rappers not to just be obsessed with the material side of showbiz but to bring society back to its consciousness, arguing that “Msanii ni kioo cha jamii” – the artiste is the mirror of society.

It is sad irony that the society G-Wiji so much tried to educate with his penetrating lyrics did not appreciate him; preferring, instead, soapy lyrics that glorify a life of cheap existence.