Author: Chia Kayanda
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Seven Stories Of Dating Across Seven Decades
L.O.V.E. The four letters of character development. The four horsemen of the apocalypse. But how does dating and infatuation change with the times? Is the passion my parents experienced in the 80s, before the advent of DMs and Instagram stories, the same infatuation Gen Z experience? This is an exploration of dating in Kenya through…
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Part 2: Jaba Culture Vs. Alcohol Culture
Last year, I happened to attend an anonymous music festival where I was a personal witness to the light-year speed at which jaba juice flew off the shelves. Despite the fact that jaba juice was ubiquitous at these events in previous years, no one ever paid it any mind. This time however, all the jaba…
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Part 1: I Tried To Chew Muguka And Failed. Now I Drink It.
The first time I tried jaba juice, it was a green-pulpy mess in a shot glass that glued my buttcheeks to the toilet seat for what seemed like an eternity of diarrhea; no end in sight. Thereafter, I resolved to limit my liquid substances to coffee and alcohol, at least their laxative effects were less…violent.…
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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. It is 8 p.m. in Nairobi and 6 p.m. in Berlin, where KMRU has been based for the past 3 years as…
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Chasing Umra: The Governor Lamu Almost Had
I remember where I was on the day that the results of the Lamu Gubernatorial race were announced. Saturday 13 August 2022. I sat on the living room rug of my childhood home in Mombasa watching the votes get counted on a TV that never saw darkness until the final votes were tallied and the…
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Kenya’s Underground: The Mist KE
Every Friday moon, the basement of The Mall in Westlands is transformed from plain unpainted walls & pipes to an underground watering hole for niche electronic and alternative music connoisseurs and artists titled ‘The Mist’. The Mist is a weekly basement rave providing artists with a platform to host experimental sets from all spectrums of…
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How Did Kenyans Listen To Music In 2022?
You should know, I listen to music in two very distinct ways. The first way is sponsored by the art of Crate Digging, to feed my DJ ears (I DJ under the moniker BBYY. On The Island, maybe I should have led with that?) Crate digging is like art collecting (or NFT collecting if you’re…
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The Dog, The Beach, The Music: New Year’s In Kilifi
My brother ran over a kid. That’s how our New Year season began. A baby goat though, I should clarify, not a human child. Big brother was driving us to Kilifi, his girlfriend at the time riding shotgun, his right hand steering, the other gripping her hand. Me, being the youngest, was sitting sandwiched between…
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Imagine This: A Virtual Reality Fantasy
Imagine this. A world where the physical realm and the virtual realm blend into one. Where the limitations of the mortal flesh and solid ground are erased in favour of the surrealist terrain of a 3D artists’ brush stroke. This is what Mark Zuckerberg envisions for his ‘Metaverse’. This is what Darubini: State of the…
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Utajua Hujui: The Checkered Story Of Too Early For Birds
Sunday evening. 11 November 2022. Jain Bhavan Auditorium, Loresho. Par Can lights glimmer starkly above the cast standing hip to hip. Hand in hand. Crew members in a horizontal file behind them. The auditorium lights dim slowly, the cast and crew bow to a chorus of spontaneous applause; rumour has it that this time for…