Newbie Thomas Olango aka Fancy Fingersabout talks about his achievements, challenges and celebrity crushes

Tom picked up the acoustic guitar back in high school, sometime in 2008. At that point he was only doing it because it got him attention from girls and he was considered the cool kid even amongst the older students. Then after high school, he decided to play just to pass time and ended up getting his first professional and paying gig at the end of 2011, playing for Elani. In 2012, he finally had saved up enough to buy his first bass guitar and the boys (Sauti Sol) got it for him while they were on their US tour. His elder brother Polycarp played a very significant role in Thomas’ musical career. After getting his first bass guitar and being totally clueless on how to play it, Polycarp paid for five lessons for him, which he keenly attended. After that, he just learnt by seeing and hearing. In January 2013, he started getting bass gigs and also started playing for Sage. He later became her music director. His career took off on a high note with him landing a house guitarist role on the Comedy Club, a local TV show. After that he quickly made a mark in the music industry by working with big names like Amileena, Lyra Aoko, Wangechi, Rabbit, Madtraxx, Elani, Wendy Kimani, Becca (a multi award winning Ghanaian songstress who was in Kenya shooting her documentary), Mejja and many more. However, to crown off his career, he would like to work with Richard Bona, who was in Kenya earlier this year for the Safaricom Jazz Fest. He would also love to play in a band called Snarky Puppy. “Just one jam session would be enough,” he enthuses. Of course, he wants to play bass for Sauti Sol and Beyoncé. “I guess I still have a long way to go in terms of achieving my career goals. My dreams stay valid though,” he adds. In his line of work he is privileged to have met almost all the hot female artistes the industry has. He is  seeing someone but as usual, wants to keep her safe and wishes not to disclose her name. This does not hinder him from looking and appreciating, right? Tom has some celebrity crushes and has been star-struck a couple of times. He tells us about his crushes and tongue-tied moments. “There’s this time after an Elani gig that Victoria Kimani came and called me by my name and complimented my playing. I just stood there wondering how she even knew my name. Also, when I met Richard Bona. I was so star-struck because I drew lots of influence from his playing even before I picked up the bass,” he says. When Davido and Ice Prince were around, he had to play it cool and collected, but deep down he says he was star-struck. “My celebrity crushes are so many. I am yet to meet Xtatic but I met Sanaipei Tande a couple of weeks back,” he confesses. Being a new artiste, he knows all too well that the music industry is not very rosy. He has performed to an unreceptive crowd before. He says during the bad moments, he maintains his cool by giving his all because it’s his job and he has to respect it. “I’m that crazy guy on stage having all kinds of fun whenever I’m playing,” says Tom. “I’ve been fortunate enough to work with amazing artistes and play at prestigious gigs in and out of town in the past couple of years. I think my highlights would be studio sessions where I’ve worked on tracks for numerous artistes from Madtraxx to Sage, Dan Aceda and the Electric DJs who recently gave me the chance to work with South Africa’s Heavy K and Sauti Sol,” he notes.