Oral East Africa>The ticket-man who wrote the lyrics to Simba Wanyika’s hit songs. At the hut of the story

Written by Stanley Gazemba

When I first met him he was indistinguishable from the village old men wrung dry by city exploits and spit out to live their last days in idle drink. Then he mentioned that he had once played with Simba Wanyika.

At first I thought he was pulling my leg. We were seated in a chang’aa den in the village shooting the breeze on an idle Sunday morning. For those of us who don't go to church that is where we generally congregate on easy Sundays to socialize over what the Government of Kenya calls “pombe haramu”. It is our little hypocrisy, observing the church decree not to pick up a hoe and do some gardening on a Sunday, only replacing it with hammering locally distilled brew.

So, there we were, catching up on the latest village gossip at this den as we exchanged our silver for a measure of Mama Pima's tipple as we kept our ears pricked for the cops (one wonders why they expend so much energy chasing after chang’aa revellers that would have been put to better use chasing real criminals.

I like to carry my music around me even when at these village parties, delving into the latest shenanigans from politicians in Nairobi as we down our drink. Some old-school rhumba is playing on my phone's music player, which is in shuffle mode.

Then this guy seated next to me who I occasionally bump into in our village haunts, and who is watching me from the corner of his eye, catches my attention. When the song fades out the player jumps to a Simba Wanyika DJ mix that I downloaded on YouTube. Suddenly my guy becomes animated.

“Msanii, ongeza volume kidogo,” he implores, tagging at my arm, his ear cocked.

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A little surprised, I fiddle with the old android phone to wrest out of it a little more volume, wondering why he addressed me as “msanii”. Maybe it is my appearance. Or perhaps we sniff each other out.

Gaza msanii

My last attempt to cut a rhumba album at Maurice “Monye” Oyando’s Next Level Studios way back in 2005 when I was still a student ended miserably. The only track “Shallie” that came out of that venture hardly blinked on the pop music radar and barely hit a hundred bars on Youtube.

And so when we got talking and Idachi, better known as “Hidachi wa Ingo”, told me that he had once played with Simba Wanyika, one of the most iconic bands to ever grace the East African music scene. I thought, “Ah, here goes another wanna-be from the rhumba graveyard”, a yard that I knew all too well.

But then there was something about this guy. For one, his dressing and demeanor was a little odd for a greying old man whiling away his retirement years tending to his cows and boma in the village.

Dressed in his old wingtip shoes (popularly known as sharpshooters) fitting jeans and faded Northpole windbreaker it was easy to picture him on stage at the now dismantled Bombax club that once stood at the spot currently occupied by The Junction Mall along Ngong Road; or Muungano Point Club in Eastleigh Section Two in Nairobi. These are the clubs where Simba Wanyika roamed when they were at their peak in the late 80s.

I have worked with musicians for quite a while in my days as a contributor at Nation Media and as researcher, writer and editor at Tabu Osusa’s Ketebul Studios, and I know well their penchant for telling you what they want you to hear. It is the reason I had to seek out Abbu Omar, who also played with Simba Wanyika, and who has been adversely mentioned by Hitachi, to give us his side of the story.

Paka mweusi

As they say in Swahili, “Mghala/ mnyonge muue, lakini haki zake umpe” ( loosely: give the devil his due). According to Hidachi, they called Abbu ‘Paka Mweusi’ (black cat) behind his back because of his excessive pride and refusal to climb down to the level of other ‘ordinary’ musicians. It is a nickname branded him by their bass player, Zoro.

Strangely, when we first contacted him, Abbu claimed never to have heard of Hidachi. “ Hidachi was never a manager of Simba Wanyika,” he told me. “ Simba Wanyika na Les Wanyika, even Issa Juma’s Super Wanyika did not have a person called manager. Unakusanya wrong informations(sic). Watu ni waongo sana.“

But later on he recanted and told us that Hidachi was just a gateman who was never a member of the band.

According to Abbu, Hidachi’s job was to collect the takings at the gate. “Hitaji was a doorman selling tickets at the gate. After that he gave the money to Wilson then Wilson paid us,” he said in our communication on Facebook Messenger.

I asked him about the song “Kanyama”, which has lyrics in Lulogooli, a language from Western Kenya that also happens to be my first language

Familiar lyrics

According to Hidachi, he composed that song in praise of a famous fundi (builder) from his home village in Mulundu, Vihiga who was called Anyama. There's a repetitive phrase in the lyrics, “reka kurira” (stop crying) that I can clearly identify, lending credence to what Hidachi is saying, even though the ‘r’s are pronounced with a harder ’l’ sound from the natural Lulogooli.

But according to Abbu, that song was composed using lyrics from the Kigoma region of Tanzania. “ Kanyama una mambo mengi ya lugha za Kigoma Tanzania, not Luhyia,” he said.

Hidachi also told us he composed the song “Jackie” in praise of his wife. But Abbu dismissed the claim.

Abbu, who is currently based in Tokyo, Japan with The Tanzanites Band, is the author of the autobiography “East African Pop Music: the History of all Wanyika Bands”, published in Swahili as “Maisha Yangu na Bendi za Wanyika”, a book that gives a more detailed history of Simba Wanyika and the offshoot bands. He encouraged me to buy the book if I wanted to find out the real Wanyika story. “You will never see that name of Hitachi kwa band members,” he said.

OGs

Most of the original founder members of Simba Wanyika, notably the brothers Wilson and George Peter Kinyonga, have since passed on, but their unique musical arrangement and style continues to influence the many offshoot bands that they birthed and inspired.

If you mention Isa Juma Singano of Super Wanyika, who was also the studio drummer at AP Chandarana’s Studio in Kericho that midwifed the modern benga sound in Western Kenya, you are talking about a product of Wanyika. If you mention Prof Omar Shaaban’s Les Wanyika, you are talking about a direct offshoot of the original Simba Wanyika. There are many others who were directly or indirectly touched by this band, among them Mas System that played at Wanyika’s traditional haunt, Muungano Point (Kasongo) in Eastleigh Section Two in the late 1980s.

It would seem like the legacy that the Kinyonga brothers, who trace their lineage back to Rwanda and Congo, left continues to live on in popular Kenyan music, the controversies notwithstanding.