The village entertainer

BY JECKONIA OTIENO The village entertainer It is entertainment time during a function that has drawn the whole village to rally against teenage pregnancy and other related issues on sexuality. Three young men have their turn to perform to the crowd; all of them are in primary school. The crowd goes wild with jubilation even before they start. “Track three DJ,” cuts in one boy over the microphone. This is 15 year old Emmanuel Washe, a Class 7 pupil at Katkirieni Primary School in Chonyi village of Kilifi County. He is the local village star who is daring to go places with his music. He is being backed by two other boys who have his song at heart. Washe uses the stage name Hang’a Bizo. Hang’a is coined from the word hangar which means a huge place where airplanes are kept – he says that he wants to be big like a hangar. The hit he does on this occasion is Ukimwi gonjwa sugu and he begins his rap in fluent Swahili as his flow pulls the girls from the primary schools that have been invited for a jig. The songs typically take the genre of the Tanzania contemporary Bongo only that the message instead of being about love, addresses a serious societal problem – HIV/AIDS. This is a song that he is yet to record and release but it is already making heads nod and fet stamp in the village. The journey into music has not been easy to Washe as he recounts. “It all started as a dream when I was only nine years old; I slept and had the words of my very first song flow into me,” he confesses. The following morning he got up picked a pen and paper and jotted down the lyrics of Vijana punguzeni mapenzi. These he internalised daily until he was sure he wanted to step into a studio – but not so fast! Washe went to a producer in Kaloleni Township more than ten kilometers away where he had a track made for the song so that he could use for more practice before he eventually went to record. After a while washe was ready to record so he went back to Amos, producer, who referred him to Mombasa, around 40km away. The next question would be how he managed to raise the funds to record the song. Washe states that he had started saving earlier on so that by the time he went to the studio he would have enough to record a song. Washe says, “I saved my pocket money which my parents would send me from Mombasa.” The song he notes and villagers confirm touched the hearts of many people in the village and he instantly became a darling of many in the village – both ladies and gentlemen. At three songs which are all a hit in his village yet avoiding the allure to get sensional with his music, Washe says that he wants to bring up another style of music that gets the youth talking about issues rather than talking about lust and romance. States Washe: “My area is not lust and romance because I want to concentrate on music that teaches the society as a whole and not just the young people.” His second song, Sisi wakenya twataka elimu, is also another hit which cries for the education of children in the country so that Kenya can have an enlightened young generation that will take up the reins of leadership. He says that his teachers have been of great help to him since they discovered that he could sing. He says that at times he has to go and perform outside his home area but not very far and the farthest he has gone is Kilifi town. Washe has a little piece of advice to the young and talented: “If you have talent then continue practicing because you never know what might come out of it.” His argument is that at times he feels like he is hitting dead ends with his music but every time he performs and sees his local audience appreciate then he realizes he is on the right track. His only hope is that talent search would not just be concentrated or limited to cities and towns but expanded to discover those like him who might never get known. To add on to music, Washe is also an accomplished DJ at least by the standards in his village and people appreciate and seek services during events like weddings, funerals and education rallies. The young musician believes that there is a lot coming his way and he is ready to face the storm to make it to the top but for now he is concentrating on his studies and study music at the university.