:: Stop Violence
on Children (Kwani Open Mic)
By James Murua
Kwani had sent out a press release about the upcoming
Kwani Literary Festival in December to media houses and the world
in general. Thus when I attended the monthly Kwani Open Mic event
at Club Soundd, the crowd was a bit expanded in a way. There was
quite a large number of media in the house who may have forgotten
what Kwani was. The event was an ideal venue to meet the people
who were behind the literary festival.
Some of the more well known people in the house
media wise included Kwamchetsi Makokha an editorial consultant
with the Nation. Also from the Nation Media Group was Joseph Ngunjiri.
And there was my "mortal enemy" Otieno Amisi who works
for Oakland Media as an editor. Tony Mochama who owns these events
was in the house too. There were quite a few others. By the way,
I wonder whatever happened to that dude who works on the Spicy
pullout in “The Leader”? Apart from media there was
also Vee and her
colleague from Ogilvy (No I can't remember his name). But I cannot
forget the Ukoo Fulani dudes. Or Binyavanga
Wainaina, the man himself. Or Mel who is China bound
very soon (sob).
Seeing as there was quite some media attention the
poets were on the best performance mode. Quite a few of the Kwani
usual suspects performed. With Mwaniki Mageria
performing and KBC's Terry Ann Chebet doing the
readings it was a pretty decent night. Marion Vionna has a new
shorter look to her hair and her performance reflected it. She
lambasted those who fear her overwhelming Africaness. Tell ‘em
girl. Grandmaster Masese who recently set up
his blog (click here) was in the house and his poem was really
related to the theme. It was a cry from a child who was abandoned
by his mother at his grandmothers. The baby was promising never
to forgive its mother for this major slight. He also performed
with Njui on his trusty obokano. Their poem was more along the
lines that the people who violated, raped and generally messed
up children were among us. Chilling. This Njui
dude seems to be doing some really thought provoking stuff.
Tony Mochama read another excerpt
from his upcoming book. We await the book mate. Denis reminded
us that he was the only one who was on the theme several times
(he wasn't but people always forget to follow it). Terry
Ann Chebet did several poems and read from Kwani
2 (El Dorado). Unlike Lillian Muli who had come last month
and was not properly prepped, Terry Ann was on point. Even the
sound tonight was behaving. However the lasses reading was messed
by the crowd who decided to be the biggest noisemakers. There
were two possible reasons for this in my view. Possibly, there
were only drunks there who had little interest in poetry and book
readings. Alternatively, the audience has all read the Kwani books
from cover to cover and thus didn't need to listen to that pretty
lady reading. Maybe. I can't wait for Kwani 4 to test this theory.
The initial performance had being done by a girl
called Sharon who sang a pretty cool song. She
was really good and she was called back for an encore performance
later in the evening. The night quickly changed from “Kwani
Open Mic” to the “Sharon Show”.
The girl is that good. She was the most memorable performer of
the night. If that was her introduction to Nairobi, all I can
say is pleased to meet you too. Wow. Watch out for her.
After the main reading part I went to congratulate
Terry Ann on composure under fire and she immediately says, "I
know you, you’re the dude with that website..." or
words to that effect. I really didn't know what to say. I decided
for my sanity’s sake to take it as compliment that she had
been to NairobiLiving.com
With all said and done, I took off to my humble
abode. As I was leaving I noted Edward the Kwani Intern dude who
was not doing very badly (pretty girl mate!). By the way I was
pleasantly surprised to find that at that late hour (10:30pm)
there were hawkers outside tacos on Kimathi Street selling some
really nice boots for mamas. And shoes too. Interesting that.
p.s. That was Wole Soyinka I just saw on my TV at
JKIA right? Is Kenya on a literary revival or what?
The author manages Nairobiliving.com,
a Nairobi Lifestyle portal
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