Author: Chia Kayanda
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Rasna Warah never seemed afraid
My father loved to retweet Rasna Warah. I think in her, he believed he’d found a kindred political spirit. Someone who saw all the injustice for what it was and had the courage to scream, “For crying out loud!” But my father, being the parastatal man that he was, born during colonialism and adulting through…
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Shakahola Is The Kenyan Jonestown
Guyana, 1974. Nearly a thousand worshippers at the People’s Temple Of The Disciples of Christ follow their leader, the charismatic Preacher Jim Jones, from the boardwalks of California to a 3,800 acre parcel of Guyanese forest. Those who migrated were promised a land of paradise, free from the racial and capitalist injustices of continental USA.…
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Diary Of A DJ: The WhineDown
“Aki mum, it wasn’t even that short…” This is how I found myself being my own defense lawyer, on a Sunday afternoon phone call with my mother. You see, my mother doesn’t watch her WhatsApp stories, but my father does. And in a good marriage, there are no secrets. As my father swiped through the…
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The Legacy of X FM in a Post-Streaming World
For my formative years, my scope of music was defined by, and limited to, the risquè conversations of 88.4 KISS 100, the faint English accents of Capital FM, the smooth jams of Easy FM, the throwbacks of Classic FM, not to forget the urban dancefloor hits of Channel O and MTV Base. This was the…
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My Boiler Room Blues
I’ve been watching Boiler Room since I was a teenager. Through the wormhole of Youtube, I would be transported to the glistening dancefloors of Paris, London, New York, and Berlin, among other far flung locales. Vicariously sampling their underground music scenes. Boiler Room is an online music broadcast which hosts dance music events, with a…
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Staying Sane In A Time Of Maandamano
The endless news cycles. The myriad of opinions and hot takes. The barrage of social media misinformation and its sinister twin, disinformation. Raila this. Ruto that. Rigathi blah. It’s a lot. From the moment Azimio La Umoja One Kenya launched its bi-weekly mass demonstrations on Monday 20 March 2023, each day was a guess for…
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Daylight Come And Me Wan’ Go Home: Remembering Harry Belafonte
Daylight has come for the banana boat man. Harry Belafonte, the 96-year-old actor, singer, and civil rights activist, passed away in his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Harold George Bellanfanti Jr was born in 1920’s Harlem, New York to Jamaican parents. Back when Harlem was the heart of the New Negro Movement,…
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Goodbye Big Flexa: Costa Titch (10 September 1995 – 12 March 2023)
Whenever she’s on leave from work, my cousin Amina will don a pair of Burberry sunglasses and jet set to the idyllic ocean city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Her best friend is a DJ at a Billionaire’s club so she’s always guaranteed a great time. The minute her feet would land back on Kenyan…
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Music’s Making Vernacular Cool Again (For Me)
Sometimes I wish I could turn to Google Translate and learn how to say ‘‘this song goes hard’’ in 5 different vernaculars. Unfortunately for me, Google Translate does not list any Kenyan vernacular languages. It is 2023 and I barely know anyone my age who can fluently speak their mother tongue. The majority of the…
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Part 2: Debunk Speaks To Joseph Kamaru-KMRU
This interview is one of a series where CHIA KAYANDA sits down with globally recognized Kenyan artists who have found success away from home yet tend to go rather underrecognized here in Kenya. Bear with me: Joseph Kamaru did not give birth to himself (I said bear with me). Rather, his son gave birth to…