Mungix records- Home of the real Kenyan Gangsta Rappers.

As Tusker Project Fame 2006 crowned its new talented superstar, Valerie and awarded her with a Merc, Mungix Records had also discovered a fledgling hot artist. Mungix Records has been the Deathrow Records of Kenya and has been signing on controversial personalities who have been keeping it miles ahead of the competition. There have been several hit singles, which have resulted to death of many. It has been a major money-laundering outfit. Critics and investigators alike have linked it to the control of matatu termini, tobacco snuffing and movement of machetes and other crude weapons. Some government agents have previously been implicated in funding the record company but no solid proof has been forthcoming. The exact date of its rise is not well known. Its executives have claimed to be worshippers of certain idols from
Mt. Kenya. They have even claimed to be under the guise of the Maumau movement that paved the way for the liberation of Kenya. This twisted lie has been affirmed by the arising deaths from the occultist machete-wielding fans of the recording entity.

Maina Njenga was one of the initial artists on the roster of Mungix Records. This artist turned record mogul was responsible for hundreds of deaths in and around the city of Nairobi. During 2002/3, he claimed to be associated with Honorable MPs such as Uhuru Kenyatta, the current Official Leader of Kenyan Opposition. Since then Uhuru has distanced himself from the recording company but the dark curse has tailed him and even at present he is struggling to maintain his position as the opposition chief. Maina Njenga was eventually caught up in his web of militia and sent to jail. This gave room for our subject to pop up and take over after years of living under his shadow.

In the year 2005, Ndura Waruinge rose from the ashes of tobacco snuffing. Unlike his followers, he never had the time to grow dreadlocks. He was instead plotting world domination. His speeches were more like ‘I will axe you to death’ than ‘I will stop you from earning a livelihood’. He was more bull’s eye oriented and never liked beating around the Mt. Kenya bush. This quickly put him in the mwananchi’s eye. He became the perfect caricature of a gangsta rapper. Most Kenyan artists at this time were claiming to be G’s e.g Kantai who tied a tie but decided to wear a white T-shirt and a pair of khakis, Prezzo (R.I.P Feroz, Nazizi’s brother) and even Jerry Joe (Yeah, whatever). However, none of them could ever hog the spotlight from Ndura who had dodged bullets, flipped riot police and controlled matatu termini like the mafia.

 In time, the law caught up with him but he pulled off a Mason Betha (Mase) and Robert Kelly (R-Kelly) in one, he got saved. In a much-publicized baptism, he acknowledged the Christ as his savior. He got on so well that the Holy Spirit bore an entrepreneurial spirit within him and he founded a church.   It was while he did this that the former mogul Maina Njenga’s purported home was searched and various weapons, drugs and money were found.

Gangsta’s don’t cry (Jay-Z ‘Song Cry’) or dance (Fat Joe ‘Lean Back’) thus Ndura did not mourn but saw this as an opportunity to finally grab a hold of the title CEO/Owner of Mungix Records. Instead of distancing himself from the falling giant and leading his flock, he became a King of the Dreaded (Dreadlocked). This should not be confused with the Rastafarian culture.

A sparkling political entrepreneur in the name of Raila was suddenly a target. His music business was not enough after all a gangster rapper is supposed to ‘stay real’. He wanted to turn the country into one big ‘hustle’. This would be the worst mistake of his life. Besides being sidelined by the government, the opposition was tired of his lyrics. ‘Dawa ya moto ni moto’ was the phrase that would lead to his downfall. He had just threatened Raila that he was willing to settle it violently in the streets and this lead to the unfortunate deaths of three people. He was put behind bars and informed that during the Christmas period, he shall preach to the prisoners (Perhaps Milango ya gereza itafunguka). This was done despite his pleas that he should walk free and once again shepherd (or should it be ‘wolfpack’) his flock from the outside.

Will he rise straight out of jail and release a classic double album like 2Pac? Maybe not, no one wants him to see the daylight, unlike Pac or Lil’ Kim. He is even not down with his clergymen. He has gone through the cycle of a real Gangsta rapper; from Gangster to Pastor to Gangster to Prisonster. What next for Mungix Records?

——The above is dedicated to the 18year old girl who died from a reckless police shooting and the three who died in Kibera. It is unfortunate that the bad guys sometimes come on top. It is my hope and prayer that everyone will find space in their heart to think of saving a soul this Holiday Season—–

  The Unsweetness of Christmas!

The rise in the price of sugar in Kenya is slowly sucking the sweetness out of this festive time. The sugar cane producers and manufacturers are blaming distributors. The government is in agreement but the Professor-wannabes at Bugzzalot have their own theories.

• Since Mumias Sugar Company controls over 50% of the market, they might be deliberately involved in a conspiracy to hoard the necessity in order to fund their IPO. If the IPO is under subscribed, they will have to source funds to buy back the ‘hanging’ shares that were on offer. This also implicates the government and other sugar companies who might just want to be in for the ride.

Or

• There is a lack of demand for the shares due to the obvious high pricing and maybe since all the extra cash being spent on buying the rare commodity, which has experienced a 50% price increase per packet, is holding back the cash needed to buy the shares!

Celtel genius: Best of both worlds

The geniuses at Bugzzalot Rats and Roaches Lab have been wondering about the new Celtel mobile network’s Uhuru Tarriffs. To switch to Uhuru (Umoja) Tariff one types in *123*1# and to switch to Uhuru (Jamii) tariff is *123*2#. What if one can inter-switch in between these two to take advantage of both? This means that during peak time one uses Umoja at KSh. 16 per minute and at off-peak one switches to Jamii at KSh.12 per minute.

Umoja is 16 flat at all times to nay network while Jamii is 24 at peak and 12 off-peak and holidays.  Kudos to Celtel for at least not copying Safaricom this time. The Zindua win-a-car promotion is just a knockoff of Safaricom’s Nguruma.

Despite this, Safaricom is as innovative as ever, at KSh.10 per minute during the Christmas-New Year season, I will not switch to Celtel yet. The CEO, Michael Joseph, also promised a reduction in call costs sometime next year. Bugzzalot assumes that this is the test run.

Branded Music Videos

Its time that Kenyans borrowed a leaf from the music industry of the West! Most good music vidz are hard to make but if an entrepreneur can approach a corporate organization with a deal to market their products in music vidz, we could see even better standards of vidz in Kenya. The downside of this is that the biz entity will control the song’s lyrics and clip content to a certain extent thus limiting the singer’s artistry but am sure someone smewhere can work through this.

Nokia is starting to face stiff compe roho safi from Motorola in Kenya. This is not due to Hellomoto ‘Kikuyu’ voice over on all their ads but the phones are beginning to appear on every bootlegged super series that I watch e.g. 24, The Unit and others. Especially the MotoRAZR model, initially it was the Kiuk voice, then the Chinese guy who has his bathtub cut in half. Now its akina Jack Bauer and President Palmer.

With the advent of Super series in millions, soon, instead of movies with peni mbili titles such as ‘Snakes on a Plane’ (I mean what the heck were the writers thinking!) or ‘The Hills have Eyes’ (The sequel will be ‘Now the hills have whole face’), there will be season big screen tickets showing the latest run of 24 or Prison Break. Ladies will have  Cuando and Secreto season tickets.

I think all the good screenwriters are moving to the super series arena. I have not sat down to watch a conventional movie for a record 6 months. The flip side is that I never even noticed until a few months ago. A friend of mine has three 40GB hard disks just for the storage of super series. Flash disks are becoming diskettes and everyone strives to get one with a large capacity. It’s not strange to come across a 10GB flash disk.

I had a problem with the modern techno savvy TVs in a previous article. Video Tapes should also make a come back. Dealing with them was simple except for the grainy look.

One would just slot it in and press play. No five in one DVDs, no format requested and rarely was there a sound picture mismatch. There’s still a VCR at home that I would love to crank back up to life. The only problem would be the small capacity that it holds but there is LP (Long Play), which could go six hours running. The digital age his forcing us to the couch potato club with bed, breakfast, lunch and supper.

I am not the only one who is striving for some info wise sanity. In Europe, most teenagers are firing up a revolution by purchasing vinyl music LPs. They are breaking away from the fixed route of record execs to the earlier dynamic analog age. This was when real instruments were the in-thing and samples were unheard of. I am a hip-hop head but I love rock because of the instrumentation. Nothing beats the sight of an earthquake-influenced drummer and a string crazed guitarist. The same applies to jazz and other similar acts. Currently, it’s very easy to get music. Present hits last for only a few months while old hits stuck in your head for ages.

. DJ Adrian gets props for maintaining the rare DeeJaying act. Nowadays, all deejays are on CDs. One can even mix with easily available software from the Internet. Using VirtualDJ I can outclass CodeRED. Yap, its true! Soon everybody will attain skills to substitute all these original art forms. You may say that I am hating BUT I AM ONLY STATING. DJ Adrian recently proved that old is gold in a recent CapitalFM DJ battle by scratching the ever-hyped CodeRED to chicken pox-dom.

I want to use my VCR head cleaner again, I want a tape and I want vinyl. I want! I want! I want!

Is it pure coincidence that in the Bible, Uriah’s wife, BATHsheba was seen on the roof by King David having a
BATH prompting

 In MTV’s ‘Making the Video’, which shows how various music stars video singles are made, the final music video clip is shown at the end of the program. Bugzzalot thinks that they should do something similar to their other regular ‘Making the Movie’; show the movie at the end of the show!

First they took our trousers, now they want our short hair, what next our p*****s?

First we took their manicures then took their long hair, what next their p*****s?

Yeah it is as hard to fill in the gaps as it is as hard to draw the graying line between the male and female genders.

Since oil was discovered in Colorado, U.S recently. The future presidents will stop meddling in Middle East affairs in a decade before the experts do their research and approve mining in the area.   

Lately, I have seen many designs coming up from Kenya. People are finding new ways of being con artists. The Maasai are always the victims due to their great culture. Over time, every designer wants to be a red and its not even Vals.

At design competitions, glorified tailors are increasing the number of Maasai designs. If you can assemble a Maasai outfit artistically, your name is bound to hit headlines- not in Kenya of course but outside. Huko U.S na Euro mafans ni wengi!

Phoebe Njeri recently won a Cape Town International Fashion Award for her Maasai design. She bolted from obscurity to greatness in no time. And guess what… her designs don’t sell in Kenya since they are expensive and Kenyans are bright enough to know a fake when they see one. Hate me now!

On the other hand, congrats to Mr. Sironka in the US who is trying successfully to promote the true Maasai culture and the Kiswahili language through the village that he is setting up. Additionally, he is helping to promote the education of girls back at home through funding their fees from the cash stemming from spreading his roots to the world.

So get to knitting, it will pay!

The rise in child molestation cases has led to me being very conscious of how I treat little ones. I love talking to them because I get that raw innocent view of their lives that I always find vital in getting in touch with my humane side. Molestation is an incurable sickness and death is not even enough to punish the assailant. 

Every other day, there is a case somewhere. Sadly, it is usually us men. It has affected me sub-consciously for so long that now I always find myself not behaving as casually as I did around children- lest I am accused. This is paranoia that I hate having. On my part, if anyone of my unborn kids were to undergo the pain, I would probably end up in prison for the murder of the assailant. I pray it never happens to anyone.

Is it just I or do you find using the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to compensate the families of the bereaved in the Libra House fire kind of strange? 10 people died and the families have not yet identified a few but Hon Mwenje should not use this as a scheme to ensure that he is yet again the most popular MP in 2007 General Elections. The CDF is meant for development as boldly stated. This might begin a vicious cycle whereby all major tragedies will be CDF compensated thus the government will evade the responsibility of looking after it’s citizens through development.

 MPs know that the CDF currently is a free for all and it’s hard for them to gobble up all the cash alone. Consequently, each and everything can be misappropriated. The government must seek other avenues to compensate these victims. In the Libra case, first and foremost they must push the conviction of the managers and owners of factories who lock in their workers during night shift. Secondly, they should take responsibility of quickly suing the ownership in order to pay the victims’ families. In the incident, even one of the owners was burnt to death.

The bad side of this is the beauracracy of the government thus the case must be fast tracked. Remember the Mtongwe Ferry disaster- some of the victims kin have not yet been compensated almost a decade after the death of some 200 people. Maybe Mwenje is trying to cut through this but I don’t think so…