When Kapuka club bangers raided the airwaves in Kenya

 Czars of Amka Ukatike hit song

It has now been fourteen years, but as you will shortly see, I cannot imagine a year when Kenyan youth produced so many songs (that each became a club banger and national hit on the airwaves) like the year 2004. Just to jog your mind a bit...

Amka Ukatike- Czars

This song was sung by a very young man, actually, just a mere teenager from the Coast, who went by the stage name Czars.

I remember when I first heard the name, I thought it was Czars like ‘Russian Emperors,’ only to realize it was a corruption of the word ‘scissors’ as in makasi.

Anyway, when the young man dropped this song ‘Amka Tukatike,’ complete with a national music festival feel of a stage and adjudicators it cut into youth popularity like scissors through paper.

And Czars became the czar of kapuka loving youth in Kenya for a short while, sweeping the CHAT awards (Chaguo La Teeniez) in 2004 alongside the chopper-hopping-to-Carnivore Prezzo.

Come November, and Czars failed to win anything at the Kisima Awards, and wept like a baby.

His year as a star saw him not bother with studies too and ended up with him scoring a strong ‘D’ plain in the demanding KCSE exams.

Githurai – by Mr Lenny, Googs and Vinnie Banton

 Mr Lenny

A few songs had been sang about neighbourhoods, including by the late E-Sir who famously warbled about ‘tuendee tuka-wake, huko Nairobi West, tupitie South C …’

But this was the first real hood anthem in which the duo of Googs and Vinnie Banton proudly declared ‘wasee tumetoka Githurai (Githurai), na tumekuja ku-fry MCs dry kama yai kwa karai’ (we are from Githurai, and we have come to roast boring singers like fried eggs in a pan).

Of course all the matatus in Githurai played it on repeat; and soon, one could not enter a ma-three anywhere in Nairobi and travel five minutes without hearing ‘na wasee tumetoka Githurai.’

It can be argued that this is the song that created today’s matatu deejays/veejays.

Leta Wimbo – Sema

 Sanaipei Tande

There was a time that the Coca Cola Company in Kenya was the leading sponsor of cultural/music events in the country. That is how a trio of teens – Kevin, Pam and Sanapei Tande – came into the scene.

As Coca Cola pop-stars called ‘Sema,’ who took the city by storm.

I remember interviewing the three in a room at the Stanley Hotel, where they were staying, and being mesmerized by the young Maa ma, Sana (a sad story, as she would soon end up in the clutches of a piloting student called Manga).

Sema were superstars for a second that lasted all of 2004, before they broke up over (a story for another forum).

But how fresh-faced they were, how sweet their sound!

Deux Vultures – Nasty Thomas and Colonel Mustapha

 Nasty Thomas and Colonel Mustapha

In 2004, this duo, whom a lot of Nairobians thought were Congolese because of their odd put on accents, dropped an album called ‘Katika.’

And in no time at all, they had the city in the sun on its feet, dancing away.

‘Cheki vile Mona Lisa anavyo tingika’ (see how Mona Lisa shakes) had girls twirling away, with smiles on their faces (twirling, because twerking was still a thing that was like ten years away).

‘Kinyaunyau’ was another song beloved by all the boys in the club, who shouted along to it. Then there was ‘Adhiambo C,’ a song that preceded the preference for big-bottomed babes that’s prevalent today.

Tuendelee – Kleptomaniax

 Kleptomaniax

Three lads – Collo, Roba and Nyashinski – conspired in 2004 to create what is perhaps the greatest ever club and beef hit that our country has ever heard.

Nyashinski left for the USA three years later and ‘Kleptomaniax’ folded (although Collo went on solo, producing the occasional hit, even as Roba got married early to a light video vixen).

Nasty Thomas also later married an air hostess (who came back early from a trip one day and busted the dude in bed with her best friend, so, divorce), leaving Mustapha to go it alone, with all sorts of funny antics in the music/socialite industry.

Pam of Sema left the country for further studies, Sana is still on the scene doing different things, while Kevo is a great singer for Mike Tawfique’s Hot Rod band (K1, Tuesdays, Kempinsky, Fridays).

As for Czars, he ran away from home in Mombasa and vanished without a trace – although there have been occasional sightings of him, like Elvis; the closest being by the journalist Carol Nyanga who came within a block of tracing him to a flat in Eastleigh, inhabited by a Somali slut.

 

 

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