By Stevens Muendo
It’s Friday afternoon and Amor Thige of Amor Entertainment is making frantic efforts to diffuse mounting pressure from showbiz stakeholders. It seems the much-anticipated concert featuring Jamaican superstar Colin Harper aka Collie Buddz is not to be.
Collie and his entourage missed their connecting flights and blamed it on a ‘compressed performance schedule’. This happened despite the performance fee and flight being paid for in advance.
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The usual suspects
At Rangers Restaurant, Karen, Chris Bittok, Mwai and The Usual Suspects were thrilling fans in the wild with jazzy notes. Across the City Centre, ‘Hip-Hop Halisi’ was on cards at Club Quatika and on the same night Blackstar Entertainment were hosting the ‘Black Saturday’ throw-down at Blue Times. To add on to that was a hush-hush celebrity wedding, a media GP carting event and a concert featuring American gospel singers Sherwin Gardner, Monte G, Marvin Winans Jr. and Damita Haddon.
My first stop was Nairobi Baptist Church where the premier ‘Recharge VIP’ show was taking place. It turned out to be a flop. Next was Club Galileo, Museum Hill where Jaguar, one of his beau’s and Shaffie Weru showed up shortly after 9pm. Lauryn of The Lounge (formerly Chillers) was also in the house as were Ogola and Real Solo of STV.
On Saturday was the top-secret celeb wedding whose fantastic evening party at Alfajiri, Hurlingham featured the Code Red DJs on the decks.
Next was ‘Black Saturday’ at Blue times with Blackstar Entertainment. Although the party started on a low note it later it picked up as the deejays ignited the party with ‘wicked’ mixes of old school funk, hip-hop and soul.
Hip Hop Halisi
On the same night at Club Qatika, Wakamba Wawili were launching their debut album Tume Survive Kilo Vita supported by diehard hip-hop fans from Eastlands.
The gig looked more or less like a WAPI (Words and Pictures) convention save for the lack of Graffiti artistes. Most of the Ukoo Flani Mau Mau members from Dandora and Mombasa as well as a score of underground artistes had attended the all night concert. Artiste performances interspersed with DJ mixes were the order of the day. Rapper Gaza got the crowd singing and dancing to his Siku Njema remix. Wenyeji then gave an outstanding performance of Mizani, Dandora Burning and Pressure.
The night however, belonged to Wakamba Wawili who brought the roof down with Musiq ya Soul, KI-Souljah, Wakamba Wawili, Full Kipupwe and the track title song Tume Survive Kila Vita.
Recharge concert
Finally, on Sunday, is the ‘Recharge Concert’ at Nairobi Pentecostal Church, Karen. Here Sherwin Gardner, Monte G, Marvin Winans Jr. and Damita Haddon took to the stage alongside local acts for what turns out to be a stellar gospel concert.
At 5pm, an energetic and humorous Marvin Winans Jr storms the stage with his popular hits Believe and Never Let Me Down. His new Matrix dance move set the crowd on fire and prepared the stage for the phenomenal Damita who can hardly believe her ears as fans sing her songs word-for-word.
"This is a great feeling. It’s phenomenal," she said.
And bringing the curtains down with an electric performance was award-winning Sherwin and Monte G backed by a full band. Their groovy gospel reggae beats of Yuh Dun Know and He Died for Me got the crowd moving and grooving. After such an invigorating recharge, I must say the memories of the Collie Buddz’ no-show were far behind me.
