By Bobastles Owino Nondi
Published January 21, 2007
Despite what she describes as her “big, bad, uncontrollably loud voice” that she could not dare use in singing even the Kenyan national anthem, budding Kenyan musician Zipporah Agatha Okoth has just released a 10-track album that is already selling ahead of the official launch in Nairobi on March 30, 2007. BOBASTLES OWINO NONDI writes.
Listening to Tugo Lona Nindo (playing is more important to me than sleeping), Okoth’s debut album, one can hardly believe it was made by a woman who, for most of her 23 years, dreaded singing in public due to her fear of embarrassment of possessing what could be described as a deep ‘masculine’ voice and only started singing after being pushed to do so by one of her lecturers at Maseno University in western Kenya.
Upon joining Maseno, Okoth secretly studied Drama and Theatre Arts–her lawyer father wanted her to study law as opposed to teacher training that her mother desired for her–while all along making her parents believe she was pursuing a communications course.
As part of her course, Okoth says she had taken so many dance units to the extent her lecturer, Dr Caleb Okumu, invited her to join the college band where, ironically, she became the lead female vocalist until she left the college in 2005.
Without realising it, the experience had prepared her for showbiz as her ‘big, bad voice’ was transformed into a mellow diva’s one.
A year after graduating, Okoth auditioned for Alliance Francaise-sponsored Spotlight on Kenyan Music project aimed at promoting Afro-fusion music in Kenya. She was one of 10 artists selected to each record a song on the second Spotlight on Kenyan Music album compilation in 2006. Her contribution to the album is the song, Mama Wendi (Your Song, Mama).
A few months later, she went into the studio to record Tugo Lona Nindo which she funded from her own savings from her job at Institute of Performing Artists Limited, IPAL, in Nairobi.
Exuding brilliance, confidence and a tinge of arrogance carried in a radiant outlook, Okoth gives the impression of a social activist and not a musician. Perhaps aware of this, she quickly excuses herself for “having a bad, deep and uncontrollably loud voice” just as we start to chat.
“I never imagined I could ever sing. I never used to sing even the Kenyan National Anthem in school. I felt embarrassed with my deep voice that most of the time I could just keep quiet even if I was burning inside to share my ideas for the fear of being laughed at,” Okoth says, breaking into one of numerous bouts of laughter.
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I ask her what she thought of her experience from the Spotlight on Kenyan Music.
“It was a great experience that gave me exposure and publicity that is invaluable to any entertainer. The fact that my single was one of the songs in the compilation, and that my song got a lot of airplay, has laid the ground for me in the publicising and marketing of my maiden album,” she says. “But it is not the best place for the untalented who simply want to experiment. If you cannot pursue music and do your own compositions and recording after Spotlight on Kenyan Music, the singles compilations cannot be of much help to you.”
Okoth sings about things that touch her heart. And one of these happens to be children and childhood.
In Tugo Lona Nindo for instance, an adaptation of a popular Luo folk song that has transcended generations, and which is used by older people to censure playful children, by women in merry dances, or by children themselves in mock parenting, Okoth goes back to her childhood and declares that “Mae tugo ma ka opogagodo dipoka aketho denda” (I would rather be harmed than be separated from this game).
Okoth appears to indulge in social activism when she highlights the plight of children in the third song, Wooi Mama, which talks about rape, child molestation, HIV/AIDS and unwanted pregnancies as the world looks on unconcerned.
Done in Kiswahili, Wooi Mama calls upon society to tackle these issues and protect vulnerable children and women from pests.
Another thing that appears to touch the heart of the 23-year-old up-and-coming diva is love, with three-quarters of the songs tackling matters of the heart.
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In Wuod Jo Katiga, the performer, crazy with love, confesses her love for “the-son-of-the-people-from-across-the-waters”: “I cannot eat, I am cold all over, please come over and wipe my tears, Please come over so that we can have children, children who resemble you, and some that resemble me.”
Other love songs on the album are Hera Kende, Naona Haya, Hera Na Mar Adieri, Wewe Tu Uliniacha and Naililia Busu.
Hera Kenda (Love is unconditional; I would die for you) carries on the love story in Wuod Jo Katiga, only that this time around a starry-eyed girl is challenging, her parents who have turned against her love, and their teachings and integrity, prodding her to leave her boyfriend, Oloo, simply because he is poor. She asks: “But you said that love is not based on wealth. Why is it that now you are saying love is riches? It is only Oloo who truly loves me. He is the one who must marry me.”
The love-stricken woman then confirms her position in the seventh song, Hera na mar adieri (My love is true; you can feel it in your heart).
She says: “I pretended that I did not love you but you never gave up. All my friends said that you did not deserve me, that you were promiscuous a drunkard. But love is blind, baby! Mama told me love is blind.”
Although done in Dholuo, the simplicity with which Hera na mar adieri is rendered makes it the kind of song that could transcend language barriers, with its easily memorisable melodious lead solo and soothing background vocals and almost hypnotic danceable Lingala beats.
Apart from the fact that her parents have negated their own teachings in Hera Kende, the young woman in love cannot find the courage to face a man and tell him, “Look here, man, I love you for fear of not only being rejected but also risking being branded unconventional.” This is brought out in the song, Naona Haya (I am too shy to say I love you because I am a woman). And, in an apparent pattern, this story is continued in the last song, Naililia Busu (I yearn for a kiss).
Wewe tu Uliniacha (It was you who abandoned me) however, is a different love story in Okoth’s diary. The cry baby in the woman in love seems to have given way for a mature woman who knows when to chase and when to leave as lost, if only the song was the last in the list, coming after the naivety exhibited in Naililia Busu, which also comes off as a tune of a popular praise and worship Christian song.
But perhaps this is because Naililia Busu follows Yesu Nimiya Mor (Thank you Jesus for giving me joy, peace and love).
In what would come out as hind sight, Okoth thanks her father in Aheri baba (I love you, father) “for all the sacrifices.”
She says: “I wrote this for my dad; to thank him for the sacrifices he made to ensure that I completed university education. He sold his pick up truck in order to take me to school; I also thank my mother for the teachings about life and values she imparted on me.”
Okoth says her parents have accepted her new music career and that they are usually among the first people to listen to any recording she makes.
“For the first time, when I took this new CD to them,” they seemed to agree and said: “You are bound to go places with this kind of music”, Okoth says.
Although music does not clearly run in her family, Okoth, who says she plays ‘drums and a little guitar’, can trace some traits to her uncle who composes church songs.
Tugo Lona Nindo is produced by Paul Kibukosya of Ulopa Serenade Music and Chris Adwar of Tuff Records and executive-produced by Okoth.
The tunes to the songs are drawn from modern Kenyan ohangla and benga, East African taarab, Congolese rhumba/soukous, and South African zouk styles.
Tugo Lona Nindo will be launched on March 30, 2007 at Alliance Francaise in Nairobi, starting at 7.00 PM.
I ask Okoth why she does Afro-fusion when most of her age mates are attracted to American-styled hip hop and R & B compositions, often generated in studios. I am also curious to know why she sings in Dholuo and Kiswahili, and not English, for instance.
“I do not want to act like many young musicians in Kenya. Besides, I have loved African music from childhood because my father used to come home with albums by Africa’s all time greats and which we all listened to,” she says. “As for language, enough songs have been done in English and will continue done by Wazungus themselves.”
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Okoth describes herself as an actress, dancer, and motivational speaker on youth affairs, and scriptwriter who also works with various groups on children’s theatre and community participatory education.
Completing a Master of Arts degree in Gender and Development, Okoth says she plans to continue recording “songs that were once the craze of the village as well as keep on writing new ones that address contemporary issues.”
Okoth also looks forward to marrying and “getting three children from my own womb and adopting three more so that I can have six children like my mother.”
Before then, however, Okoth says she will continue offering performance skills to children and youth in the Kileleshwa neighbourhood, Nairobi.
Okoth may have made a good account of herself on this recording with lots of Congolese–it even boasts a South African-sounding song, ‘Yelele Mama, Yelele Baba’–influence but she is likely to do much better if she were to acquire her own unique, consistent identity. She however insists that what comes off as danceable Congolese beats on the recording is indeed Luo Benga.
So, why don’t you buy and listen to this African music album to judge for yourself what her serving is? Some argue that the beauty of music lies not in the style that people slap on it but in the listening to it. I couldn’t agree more.
As presented, one strains to read the sleeve of Tugo Lona Nindo due to inappropriate type face, small and bold italic type size against a yellow/brown background. Titles of songs, too, could benefit from some tighter editing and translation that steers clear of loose and literal word-for-word meaning.
Additional reporting by Ogova Ondego
