Valerie Kimani, 25

Lead actress

We all know her as the Tusker Project Fame 1 winner. After her win, her fans were expecting a series of albums from her, but she released one, and went into acting.

Playing the main character in Kenya’s hit musical Mo Faya, written and composed by Afro-fusion singer Eric Wainaina, Valerie shows off her charisma and strong vocals as she plays the character of Syombua — a strong woman from the slums whose only weakness is a DJ who is the love of her life.

She wooed the audience in the recent New York festivals winning her the ‘Outstanding Individual Performance’ award.

Thespian is born

Valerie’s acting history dates back to when she was 18 years, appearing in her first movie ‘Behind closed doors’ , which was about domestic violence. She later had a stint in Better Days, a drama series on KTN, when she was still in Daystar University. She has also featured in the recently released Shuga — an MTV production series, — playing Cindi, a morally upright girl in campus.

"I was acting professionally way before I started singing. But when I got into TPF in my third year in campus, things changed," she says.

Her first album was received with mixed reactions, but it placed her on the platform of a different musician.

"I learnt that a Kenyan crowd is hard to please, and the fact I was doing something different made it even harder," she recalls.

Although a prophet is seldom celebrated at home,Valerie’s music was loved by fans from South Africa and the larger East Africa.

She got a chance to curtain raise for Canadian singer Michael Buble during the South East Jazz Festival.

While in New York, she was spotted by a French lady from the Cirque Du Soleil, who wanted her to audition for a spot in their next tour because they wanted to incorporate an African theme.

"She sent an email to Eric saying she wanted me to audition for the lead role in their next Europe tour. I was excited," she says. Sheba Hirst, 32

Executive producer

She wears many hats: TV host, programme manager and ace artist in the making.

Sheba is Eric Wainaina’s wife and is the producer of Mo Faya.

"When I met Eric, I was a Political Science student at Wesley College in the United States and, initially, the whole idea was just to support his dream," explains Sheba.

At the time, Eric was following up a cartoon on Luanda Magere done by Sheba’s father that he later developed into a play.

Sheba joined Eric to start the Rainmaker Productions as the executive producer. Minoring in theatre and film in campus enabled her to run the production house.

Financial challenges

"I come from a family of artists. My mother was a production manager at Oxford University and she and my dad also ran a production company together. I was into politics but it was rather inevitable that I was to end in arts," she says.

She later left to work with the Sarakasi Trust and was not present during the first production of Luanda.

"Eric felt the story should be told to more people out of Nairobi, so when he got invited to the Sundance Institute in the US, he worked on the script a lot and Mo Faya was born," she explains.

Sheba went back to Rainmakers Productions to assist in making the production a success. They entered the Rainmakers Productions for the UK Edinburgh film festival but it did not make it for the show due to financial constraints.

Sponsorship

Later they tried to apply for the New York film festival, which was also expensive. This is when she felt the pressure of being a producer and started looking for sponsors.

"I approached Safaricom because they always supported Eric through his music. They were shocked at what we expected of them but they were willing to help,"

"We were lucky that Virgin Atlantic supported the show by giving us subsidised rates for our New York travel," she adds.

Although Sheba has been involved in production of other festivals, the New York one was her first true experience with a musical.

"There were times when I felt like I wanted to quit because I was pregnant, but the faith Eric has in his dream kept pushing me to do it. It takes a lot of faith to get a production fundamentally successful" asserts Sheba.

Call to action

The reception they received in New York was amazing being ranked among the top, with Valerie scooping the ‘Outstanding Individual Performance’ topping other competitors who had worked on their productions for longer time than Rainmaker.

"The play is a story revolving around the people leaving in informal settlements and how they are manipulated by politicians who take advantage of their situation, promising them what looks like paradise, yet they simply want to take advantage of them," she says.

A lot of the play has been embedded in Swahili because it is a story from Kenya and is much more directly linked to the slum dwellers whose common language is Swahili.

"I am still using my activist’s mind to reach out to people through art, so I cannot say I have lost sight of my dreams. We will continue to do more productions that create awareness so that people can get to learn and embrace positive change," says Sheba.