The studio door is open because it’s a little past 3 pm on January 25th, 2020. Being outdoors in a Nairobian January is what you’d imagine the inside of a slow-grilling oven to be, and that means the door at Storm Records has to be left open. With thousands of Read more…
If you have overslept, run late in Kenya or gotten home at odd hours of the night, then you’ve most likely used a motorbike. Motorbikes, commonly known as ‘nduthis’ beat traffic, get to places where public service matatus don’t, and due to their increasing number, are often very affordable. The Read more…
When I walk around places, I like to play a face guessing game. I pick out a random stranger’s face and guess their age. Of people I come to know their ages later, I have a surprisingly good success rate, and only extremely neanimorphic faces throw me off, (that’s people Read more…
A running joke in Nairobi is that if you slap the word ‘executive’ in front of an item, it doubles in price. A haircut can cost Ksh 100, but the same haircut, branded as ‘executive’ will cost Ksh 200. Replicate that across apartments, furniture, transport and you have an idea Read more…
We waited in line, intimidated and silent, words had a cost, and we were paupers. A starving, ailing, beggarly country had waited for months to remove them from power. Overhead, the sun was scotching, but the mood in the booths was like a laundry day on the dreariest day of Read more…
The whole of that Friday, Joe smelled blood. In the morning, as he laboured to get himself off the bed, he smelled the raw, nauseating smell of platelets and haemoglobin. He patted the large shock of coarse black hair that covered his head and (thankfully) didn’t feel any fluids. He Read more…
It’s about half past nine, the streets are deserted, and the wind blows slowly. Disinterested. Like a worker who can’t wait to go home when morning comes. It blows away the loose pieces of litter left behind by a careless population, pieces of paper, groundnut wrappers, shopping bags, promotional material, Read more…