J . B

The Lord may not come when you call, but he is always on time.

{Jeshi La Wokovu veteran}

[J . B @Jabez_mutai]

Everyday you wake up in the morning pray to the Most High
#Grateful

[Muriaso @muriaso]

Does Cherargei face Senator Murango willingly coz this kind of humiliation is not worth it, Naokotwa😂😂

[Jay @whotfvckisjay]

It’s just your boy again. Just one big win, the kind that changes everything.

[Silas Nyanchwani @nyanchwani]

Man!

It just hit me that, starting in 2027, every millennial will be at least 30, and the oldest will turn 46. You are only young once.

It got me thinking about 1996. The year looks deceptively recent, but it was 30 years ago. Thirty freaking years ago. A girl born in 1996 is now a manager in an organisation, capable of making serious, life-and-death decisions, like sacking people, if she is in HR. If married, she commands a serious presence in her marriage, and even her pushy mother-in-law knows she can’t play with her. If she is married to an older man, she can now harass him on a Sunday morning: as he nurses a silly hangover, she plays her SDA songs while she cleans the house, making him very uncomfortable. If she is a teacher, she now heads the Languages department and oversees the Music and Drama Festival. A girl born in 1996 may no longer wear high heels comfortably, and her bag may contain supplements for her arthritic knees. She may be a serious businesswoman with a big mitumba business, and she runs a tight ship where she doesn’t suffer fools.

That is how fast life changes.

But that is not why I am writing this.

It also hit me that I listen to and enjoy music very differently. I sometimes play the songs I like most less often, intentionally, so as not to ruin their sweetness. That means I may enjoy a song in one year and stop playing it for the next five to seven years. Completely.
One such song is Wake Up, by Koffi Olomide and Papa Wemba. It is the title track of their 1996 album of the same name. On it, Koffi, having repaired his chequered relationship with his mentor, went for broke. But that particular song takes me back.

To the days when I was a boy. In 1996. Not quite 10, but with big ears for music.

Our biggest source of entertainment was the video shows in a rented room at the village shopping centre.
I am thinking about Bumburia. It is the furthest, remotest point in Kisii County, bordering Nyamira County; if it were a body part, it would be the prostate gland of Kisii. The place has remained unchanged since 1927. The shops are still mud-walled; tea and mandazi still sell for Sh 5. Some of Kisii’s and Kenya’s most consequential figures hail from the place, yet it has retained its bucolic charm and remains uninterested in any kind of development. Still, miraculously, by the mid-1990s the place had electricity, and that is where we used to go for a machine shave and to watch those videos on a 24-inch colour TV.

How I wish there had been a Kisii DJ Afro. We never understood English, and we only watched action movies. You could walk in and enjoy Arnold Schwarzenegger firing a machine gun at some guys. Or my favourite, Billy Blanks, kicking and boxing enemies he had been chasing the whole damn time. I need to revisit those movies: Back in Action, Talons of the Eagle, or TC 2000, the one he did with Bolo Yeung.

When a movie ended and people filed out, the owner played music videos while he waited for the next cohort to come in. You could watch three to five songs in between. He collected 5 bob for the next movie, and once the “movie hall” was about half full, always with young boys and young men, he would play the next action movie, one he had selected or one people had voted for.

For music, it was mostly Congolese, or, on odd days, some South African kwaito or reggae (mostly Lucky Dube). African classics like Mory Kanté’s Yéké Yéké and Angélique Kidjo’s Agolo also made the list. But Congolese music was the mainstay.

Between 1992 and 1998, Congolese music was slowing down the beat, moving away from the electric guitar and frenetic dancing of soukous. Led by Koffi Olomide, whose albums from those years are collector’s items, a new sound was emerging. Across Kinshasa, Wenge Musica had come of age, and after the split, people picked sides. Sensibly, even as a young boy, I was on the JB Mpiana side of the equation, but I never dismissed Werrason’s genius. Have you ever bumped your head to Victime d’amour, written and performed by Ferré Gola during his years with Werrason’s Wenge Musica Maison Mère? It is the kind of song that switches on an afternoon and turns it up, but that was later.

By 1996, Koffi’s four preceding albums, Haut de gamme / Koweït, rive gauche (1992), Noblesse oblige (1993), Magie (1994) and V12 (1995), had matured him and laid the ground for that groundbreaking album with Papa Wemba. The title song of Magie humbles me and makes me weepy on many afternoons, especially when raw gin burns my throat.

And now, back to Wake Up. I once saw Magunga complain that Koffi never sings, and I told him to listen to this particular song. I love it because Koffi deploys his deep, throaty baritone. His wide vocal range allows him to match the piercing tenor of Papa Wemba, whose voice on the song is as clear as a bell. In the duet, they complement each other perfectly.

The song has a deeper history too. The storyline has two parts. The first is fictional: a sorrowful love song in which Koffi pleads with a lover, Betty, who has gone cold on him and even walks right past him without a glance.

"Naweyi sans effusion de sang eh, likula te se bolingo, l'indifférence après l'amour ebomaka"("I am dying a bloodless death; it's not a bullet, it's just love.") Indifference after love is what kills.] He urges her to wake from her slumber and coldness, and to remember the vows and flowers of their love's early days. I have since learnt that once a woman goes cold, she is gone.
Koffi was talking about indifference and nonchalance long before millennials discovered the words.

In the second part, the two kings (the biggest in Kinshasa, and, better still, in Africa) bury the hatchet and dramatically summon every musician to wake up because a new dawn is upon them. They shout out their rivals, peers, friends, enemies, their fan base, and everyone who cares to listen. Even as a child, I was badly hurt that they never mentioned Nairobi; yet, after Kinshasa and Paris, Nairobi was one of their biggest strongholds.

I remember watching that video as a young boy, especially the circular, winding dance moves towards the end. Those girls were pretty, even to my virgin, preteen self. I used to sing the song word for word, though I may have heard my own things, especially in the French parts.

The song transports me back to when I was young, innocent, and impressionable. That and Kanda Bongo Man’s Tika Kolela (Bantu languages, though: in Kisii we say tiga korera, “stop crying”) were my favourites from that era.

Then I returned to Nairobi. And the city damaged me

[Eric @amerix]

NEVER GIVE UP.

[Josh Norris @JoshNorris]

This goes HARD

[KE$T @Kestmane00]

Invest in your disappearance my nigga

[Dr.kelvin 🇬🇧 🇰🇪 @BecomingKm]

Home sweet home😥.

Coming back as a full cardiologist!!

[GOV.UK @GOVUK]

The clocks go back by one hour on 25 October at 2am, which means you’ll gain an hour ⏰

What will you do with the extra time? Let us know below 👇

[JK🇰🇪 @Joe_Kiprono]

There is a time I planted cabbages and reaching the market nikapata bei iko down mbaya nikaamua kulisha nazo ng'ombe. Ng'ombe zilikuwa zikiniona nikikuja na gunia zinatoroka buana.😂

[Wan Stan 🔰 @Stan_Subru]

Hii ilinimalizanga kabisa. 😂

[Reechmilly @Reechmilly]

A nigga was down bad but God never left

[St.Paul's University @SPUKenya]

Ulimanage??

Kuja ufanye Bachelor's of Arts in peace and Conflict studies akiz

[J . B @Jabez_mutai]

Jina ni Virusi hiyo ingine ni mbaya

[nana♡ @curtiske8]

Rap battle, I'm bringing Khaligraph Jones

Who are you bringing?

[Arap Maina @EladioMK]

Finally nimejua how to save twitter videos bila blue tick

[kijana ya Manchester🧢 @dropdalot]

Mum: Endeni msalamie wageni sitting room.

Me and Bro:

[Ja Loka @_fels1]

You can never truly know the real character of a woman until she has leverage over you.

[ßtc @buzorszn]

A nigga won't be down forever.

[University of Oxford @UniofOxford]

@juneymb No Better Call Saul? Application incomplete.

[Jasun @jasunjabbar]

i have to master this trading shit , i don’t have a choice