Ohangla is driving me nuts

By Ted Malanda

I don't know about you but if I listen to one more Ohangla hit, I am going to go bonkers. And yet it seems I have little choice.

Wherever I go, ohangla is always blaring. Loudspeakers propped up on pavements, big loudspeakers hanging from pickup trucks, even bigger loudspeakers all over bars - everyone is yelling ohangla and it's driving me nuts.

But the ohangla that is killing me is the one you are forced to listen to and watch in pubs. There are probably ten ohangla stars but curiously, they all sound and look the same. Their three female dancers nearly always look the same and dance the same way and when they do that ndombolo thing, I get this insane urge to gnash my teeth, grab the TV and shake it to bits.

Whichever star it is, one never fails to hear one refrain: Raila!

African tempo

And it makes me wonder what’s wrong with these Mt Kenya people. Their man has been in State House for eight good years and not once has any of their stars deemed it fit to as much as mention his name in a song. Bure kabisa.

And yet, for me, this boredom for ohangla is new and quite shocking because the first time I watched an ohangla troop in action, they had to fling bar patrons, including yours truly, out of the bar. I had simply never heard or seen anything more exciting.

Huddled in a small bar in Kisumu, my heart just mellowed. The singing had an eerie feel, like a dirge. The drums pulsated with a rapid African tempo and when those maidens danced in their short, brightly coloured sisal skirts, it was with pregnant sensuality — a polish and style that ndombolo will never muster. It was the sort of sound that makes a young brave want to hoist one of the dancers onto sinewy shoulders and vanish into the darkness, only to reappear the next day with five fat heifers for her father. But this new fangled ohangla-cum-ndombolo thing...no!

Village dances

Meanwhile, when last week I lurched into a performance by Collela Maze, the departed Luo benga maestro, I understood why so many women of my generation went to village dances and got married that very night to the DJ. You wouldn’t find a more seductive crooner. And yet I couldn’t understand a single word!