---deCYPHERing the pill, medicine and syrup.

Four years back, I couldn’t envision myself walking without earphones in my ears. I just couldn’t. How could I when music was dope and entertaining at the same time. Top 9 at 9 at Capital, Hip Hop Thursday on Hot 96 and other hot session where Hip Hop was served well, hot. Then everything went silent when Hot 96 pulled the program down. Top 9 @9 was becoming ‘crunky’ and quite inconvenient because of the timing. Other than that, Kantai had gone under, K-Shaka was more into grooming that boothing and bamboo had relocated. New rappers were empty and couldn’t last long, just like the first one, hehe. I dumped the earphones, and the phone become a communication tool.

That was four years back. Four full years of dumped earphones, dumb lyrics and lyricists. Then suddenly, they were picked up again. Octopizzo had just challenged the lengendary Abass on a battle, rap that is. K-Force crew was making a mark, Wakamba Wawili had dropped massive jams and their swahili was relevant. K-Shaka’s grooming project was well done with Zakah, Kah, Swaleh, L-Ness and the rest in a healthy competition. Bamboo was exporting hits to Kenya, Abass had been crowned King for his longevity and flexibility. Chiwawa was barking, and the shows were calling. But in all, these revamp, there wasn’t an able show. One that called for response from the fans, one that was satisfying.

The Cypher was the show. @TheCypher984 is the handle, and capital FM the handlers. The station with class is giving as a class in Hip Hop. Code 254 and the rest of the world well represented. The weekend dose. 2 hours of non-stop, themed and good jams. Non-stop because no one talks. It’s the presenter-free show. Timely and informative. Interactive if I could add.
It is the dopest show since Mwafrika left Ghetto Radio’s night show. It is the medicine, the pill and the syrup all rolled into one. From cyphers in America, to pacesetters in Kibera-Africa. @JoeWMuchiri is the driver, and he is Cool, calm & connected.

If you are a true hip hop fanatic like @FadhiliQanini & @MarceloMarvin, follow it through. It will leave you well fed and fed up of other shows.

-the show is aired on Sat 5-7 Pm and Sunday from 11-

FriEnds,

What could we do without them? Those tag-along humans we call friends. Those humans others call ‘a circle’ and not because they are recyclable but because they run circles in your thoughts, circles on your other friends and circles in your entire life.

They are the people you drew circles with when in Nursery school in the name of doodling. They are the same people you formed circles with when doing a ring for your ‘other’ friends to fight in when in primary school.

Friends, that group of humans who know your whole family line, from that nagging grandmother to that land-grabbing cousin- whose reputation precedes his appearance.  

Circle. They are a circle, like vultures, and they circle above and cloud your presence. They dictate the people you woo, they dictate the places you can take that someone special to. They dictate the path and direction your relationship should follow, and in the meantime pretend they are not encroaching your privacy. But with friends, who has privacy really? Heck, they even know all the passwords to all your 14 accounts!

Friendly circle. They will encircle you when you are celebrating, and they will still encircle you when that sadness creeps in, when you have lost a loved one, a pet inclusive. They will sit with you in a circular table at your favourite joint and they will still sit around with you when in that Bible study

Circle of friends. Most of us have them, and most of us need them. Friends, those species of humanity who are used to judge us and who judge us along the way.

Friends, loveable, calculating, circling like vultures but indispensable.

Mkalafool: ...MInoRIty Report to Dear PEV 1300 pLUs or MInUs,...

Mkalafool: ...MInoRIty Report to Dear PEV 1300 pLUs or MInUs,...: "Maybe the 1300 plus or minus who died were lucky. Yes, that number refers to those who died after the 2007 botched General Elections. And ye..."

...MInoRIty Report to Dear PEV 1300 pLUs or MInUs,

Maybe the 1300 plus or minus who died were lucky. Yes, that number refers to those who died after the 2007 botched General Elections. And yes, you can call me a sadist, but that’s my take, and, maybe you need to listen (read) first. And yes, I was a clerk at some polling point in High-level (Estate), but if some rigging took place, it was not there. We were in a high-end estate, people do not rig in such places. Or they ought not to.

Anyway, let me go straight to the lucky 1300 plus or minus. Kenyans fought. We really did. I mean we fought; pangas, jembes, knives, spoons, stones, fires and even bullets. It was like a weaponized Wrestle-Mania, not a group of 15, but the whole country. From the highlands to the lowlands. Heck, we even fought orally, bad words and infighting through our 42-mouths. There was no reason. Infact, I only survived the fighting as I live in a high-end street, plus the perks that come with a gated neighbourhood. I won’t say the ‘Coast’ factor helped me, as some hoods here-normally known as ‘Peaceful’ Coast, were also embroiled in the battles. More of vandalism though.

And the fighting was orchestrated by whoever just because of two gentlemen, or are they gentle? Kenya fought and people died just ‘cause of two people, and the need and personal urge for one of them to have the cake. Photo after photo, and footage after footage showed the extent Kenyans had gone to, to take sides in the contest. And where were the two gentlemen? I wonder. Heck, even politicians were divided into two humongous groups.

Fast forward to the intelligent, and I would repeat, ‘Intelligent’ Justice Philip Waki. He racked his brains and decided to go after the politicians. He must have decided the local mwananchi was a non-issue in the whole burn-out episode as the 1300 plus or minus who died, covered that, since the number largely constituted of local wananchi, no politicians. They don’t die in fires while locked up, nor do they get hacked to death or amputation by pangas. Local wananchi do.

Waki made a list, and after that list was revealed, we realized the politicians may be as normal as us, taking sides without thinking of the future. Well, the 1300 plus or minus had caught up on them. And the top two had duped them too, whether by principle or through coincidence. They are now facing charges, for the lucky 1300 plus or minus.

As for the rest of us, and I mean the local mwananchi, we may be as equal as we can imagine. Since 2007, things have been going from bad to worse, and we are experiencing it as 42 mouths. Inflation that is threatening to burst, corruption in the government that is affecting us all, failed rains that are making us all face hunger and therefore more inflation, hiked fares, impunity, displaced citizens, dying citizens in famine-hit areas, lawlessness and now GM maize. We are facing all these disasters as equals, not as PRO or ANTI-the 2007-botched- election-yet-to-be-seriously-known-rightful-winner.

All tribes that form Kenya, even the tribe called the Kenyan Police, are facing starvation and inflated prices. After all the stupid fighting and rampant shooting of demonstrating Kenyans, we are suffering as one. I can bet even some relatives of the protagonists are facing starvation too, even though they fiercely defended their ‘watu’. We are suffering as ONE, not 42 tribes, not just local wananchi, not as regions, not as those who voted for a particular candidate, but as one.

Maybe that is why we were FOOLs to fight over people who cannot directly help us from our current predicaments. When you buy a packet of maize for Ksh 150, no one is there to offer you a comforting hand. We messed and fought over people instead of virtues like good governance, accountability and reason.

None of the 1300 plus or minus in their lifetimes did buy a packet of maize flour at Ksh 150, nor did they face the prospect of consuming GMOs. They are Lucky. May they RIP as we continue to languish in pieces.

Can I LOVe like my DAd does?

Living in the dark times, where a single misplaced text can start a long and winding relationship, or can destroy an existing one. We are all trying to find love in the wrong places, Tagged, 2go, Twitter, Facebook plus its other cousins, and some even in church. I once met a friend through Facebook, and we nearly dated, and that is just but an example of a single player in this mineFIELD called earth, and how the airwaves and interconnected wires are carrying massive relationship potential.

I find all this as plastic, as one cute face on these social cites is not enough. You will want to go on. Just as one girlfriend/boyfriend is never enough. We, as humans, have been blessed with multiple taste buds that are not confined to the mouth but in our other tastes too, for material things, spiritual beings, human beings and other beings including pets.

My dad calls his wife everyday of the week, between 2000hrs and 2030hrs, except when she is home. Now that is love made in Lamu, 30 years back. Very embarrassing when my generation and I, most modern and advanced than they are, cannot maintain a relationship for an year, let alone days. Why can’t I love like my dad does?

Trust that is there even when the wife lives nearly 80 kms away, while I cannot trust a person 5 yards away! Living in constant fear of what might become if you are either found, or if you stumble upon evidence linking the other person to another merger. Not knowing if you are the legitimate partner or the side dish that can be easily discarded for the main dish.

But we even luck patience to persevere, upholding the ‘for the better’ and withholding on the ‘or for worse’. We want good things only, not wanting struggles and shortcomings. We want the successful part, not the sucks-full part. The plastic generation.

I’m currently typing this while at the same time navigating through Facebook and 2go, and I’m not even concerned.

Why can’t I love like my old man does? Because their love is special.

If YOu cAn’t, Do noT REf a GAme

Those who have played football with me or watch me play in Daystar’s football pitch know that I scream a lot throughout the match, barking orders, lamenting on my team lapses or the other team’s foul play. And I’m not even a captain, neither am I a vice-captain. Coming from Mombasa, I’m used to talking, and being a bit vertically challenged than the rest of the team, I have to be noticed. One other thing, the adrenaline rush during matches makes me breath flames and, and sometimes obscenities hidden in open sarcasm.

Now, the last is always aimed at the referees, mostly fellow students. I always tell them against taking a job they cannot handle. Why convince the TM to let you ref a game when you can’t, I ask them. They all threaten to caution me with a card but it has never happened. I think it’s because my thinly veiled jabs at them are true. While even international referees make mistakes, those exhibited at the campus pitch are downright petty and end up making everything tense. As much as they are willing to officiate the matches, they cannot, thus, they shouldn’t!

Just as our current government is not capable of managing its resources.  It shouldn’t! We voted for Mr. Kibaki, and Mr. Odinga, and misters Saitoti, Murungi, Nyong’o, Haji, and ladies Karua, Wavinya, Ongaro and Amina. We voted for all those in the August house bar 22. They campaigned telling us they will deliver Capt. Jack Sparrow to us and many other things with him including roads carpeted with flowers and an alternative to the English Premier League. They promised everything the mwananchi aspires for every five years. We believed them. We did because they can, and because we want a better life for ourselves and the unborn babies we all look forward to carry around and show-off.

They started well, roads, free education, clinics in every corner and we were optimistic about the future, just like when a game starts. Then it started to crumble, corruption, impunity, the botched 2005 referendum and the unmet promises. The ref had started to dictate the game, instead of letting the players do. Wrong calls, unwarranted cautions and his conduct becoming more unbecoming, a mouthful.

Hunger across the country, slow response to emergencies, impunity, detachment with the voters and the list is endless and heartless. There was a competition for newsworthiness between calamities-some natural others man-made and the absurdity of the political class. We started becoming dillusioned and fed-up which culminated in the 2007 PEV. We had reached the end-point, and we will not go back to normal life in the near future, not our generation. We even voted the same guys in, again!

Even then, they still fueled us, politicizing every issue. That’s why we still have IDP’s four years later, but do they care? They do not even realize it, like the referee who waves play on even when a guy is lying on the pitch grotesquely, thinking he is only faking it. They do not care, and we have failed to get that into our cheap minds. All they ever care for is protecting themselves and adding their perks.

Very embarrassing situations they have plunged the country into. Lost Free Education Funds, losing land and Islands to neighbors (surely), maize scandal, a disjointed government that is more embarrassing than hate-filled co-wives, a parliament full of clerks than MPs, and the list gets more endless.

2011, hunger across the country, just like last year, and the year before and the… Al-Shaabab invasion-including a bombing, police brutality and shame, judicial drama, more border invasions and more deaths of Kenyan citizens, and the government sends a diplomatic appeal instead of sending able men and women to the borders.

And the referee blows it all when he (well, she in the case of the popular Tabitha) lets the players suffer from a mixture of adverse weather conditions on the pitch-snow, blizzards and scorching desert sun. According to FIFA rules, the play should stop when conditions become unbearable. They let inflation rise as they cannot control cartels-as some of them are the cartels, nor can they enact laws to protect the voters, nor can they reason as mature people should, or why would enough oil be in the country but untraceable, when we have an able Energy Minister, and a President, an a Prime Minister, and the rest of them all? It’s like a ref who instead of using powers vested in him, or her, lets the game come down to a melee and broken limbs.

Apart from the nice road I enjoy on my way from Mombasa to Nairobi, I have nothing else to praise. They have made us susceptible and feeling hollow like the death-eaters in J.K. Rowling masterpiece, the Harry Potter series. Just as Didier Drogba said to that Swedish referee two years ago when he prevented them (Chelsea) from progressing to the UEFA finals in favour of Barcelona, “You are a f****** disgrace”.

 Just like the lot we have.

....ladies, don't be fooled, football comes first.

..we saw it yesterday (Man u-Chelsea game), we will see it today (Arsenal-Leyton Orient game), we will see it in the weekend, and we have seen it for the past weekends, during the World Cup and many years back. A man will give up everything to join fellow men to watch a football match.

This is always done at the expense of something LESS fulfilling and MORE intimate-members of the female gender. We love you ladies, we really do, with some part of our heart. The other part, the bigger part, is dedicated to soccer. Yes, that noble game where eleven grown-up men run after dead leather, as some will put it. We talk soccer, we live soccer, we wear soccer and we think soccer- formation, transfers, accidents (injuries) and player’s private lives.

We do this because men hate predictability (read soap operas). We like the adrenaline rush of being on the edge, and the orgasmic feeling after your team has won, or the sad and engulfing web after the loss. And our emotions are restricted to soccer.

We are always willing to forfeit something special, like a dinner-date or any other date, family gatherings, weddings and household chores just to give 90 minutes to something entirely so sweet that it lacks superlatives to describe it.

Ladies, look at the number of times that you have been stood down, forced to tag along with his buddies, your calls not going through, talking to him while he is busy fondling his phone for the match report, or minute by minute (MBM) report, or getting sulks and moods swung your way. Isn’t disgraceful and insensitive? Boys will always be boys, and girls will be caring and understanding.

So, the next time you are planning for a date, or something special, research to see if there is an important match, because that is more SPECIAL to him. And remember to celebrate with him or give him the shoulder when he is really down. Or better still, keep off him tell the match has ended and a day had passed.

..the love that is so hyped, we 'loosers' think

And they waited for the flowers, for the gifts and for the mesagges, whether through texts or verbally. Hope they did come, but if they did not, thats where the issue called 'loniless' hits hard. We all like to be loved, eventhough some of us do not have lovable attributes. We pretend to be hard-to-get, snobs, of a higher class, and more importantly, too principled. But valentine day separates the chuff from the husks..or the seeds. As the 'easy' gets the flowers and the 'un-class' get the presents, the rest just watch sulkingly, blaming everyone else for hyping the pre-sci-fi generation culture that is St.Valentine day.

We should not feel bad for them, we should show gratitude that atleast we lived to see the day. Infact, we should even make fun of the day and buy ourselves flowers and gifts, and even send ourselves messages..now that no one else will do it. Can't wait to do this for myself next year!!

..the resolutions that were,

Come January 1st, 2011, and we were all there ..trying to make new year resolution that we hope we would adhere to. New social standings, education, hobbies, friends, virtues, career....the list is endless. But look at us now...exactly 38 days later and we are all over ourselves with broken, unmet and unkept resolutions. The staying sober has been hard, presumably took only two days. The chastity that did not even materialize, especially with the online-sex frenzy that is 2go and Facebook, the need to eliminate some friends collapsed especially after realisisng you owe them some cash, the change of career is on hold as the CVs dropped have grown cobwebs, and the need to find a permanent partner deemed to soon because of the sweetness of being single and ready to mingle. We forget that humans like their comfort zones and that resolutions aren't made at the snap of a finger. They take time to nurture and to convince ourselves that old habits need to die, however hard it is. Anyway, let me wait for January 2012 to make my 2013 resolutions..

Africa is waking up..

The reggae legend Bob Marley would be proud if he were still alive and see how his son, Junior Gong a.k.a Damian Marley (real name) teamed up with all-time favourite emcee Nasir Jones (Nas) to come up with the best of both worlds (reggae and hip-hop), Distant Relatives (released 2010). The album is a tribute to Africa, for Africa and by Africa- most of the beats were sampled from African beats, lingala, zouk to pure acoustic. The song speak alot about the African situation; famine, war, diseases, poverty, poor leadeship and many ill-fates following the continet all over.

The artistes may have sung as a calling from the 'dark' continent or for the thrill (not commercial since all the proceeds are coming to develop Africa) but silently their call has been heeded. Bamboo (Simon Kimani) released a statement (Jan 31, 2010) relating to the North Africa situation on his facebook account.  Africa is waking up, old-fashioned monarchs and presidents-for-life are out of fashion. Africa is waking up...

..there and back again,

..after trying it out  a couple of times to start and run a blog, i finally managed. It was funny, forgeting the password, forgeting the process (techno-savvy is a skill) and being in a writers block most of the time. Being a new year, tables have turned, going all out I say... So I was there but now I'm back again,