Artiste who sang 500 songs has nothing to show for it

Francis Chemire recorded over 500 songs in his career. [PHOTO: ANDREW MIBEI

Bomet County: Francis Koech Chemire is one of the most popular Kalenjin musicians alive having joined the music world in 1978. Chemire’s popularity completely contrasts his appearance and it reminds one of Richard Ntiru’s poem ‘Introduction’ where the persona tries to introduce a popular author to his friend but at first it proves quite hard due to the author’s shaggy looks.

Dressed in an old plain light blue coat over an equally old checked second hand shirt, Chemire cuts the figure of a local village mzee driving his cows to the river. Probably due to the rains that have been pounding the region, his black trousers are tucked into old gum boots that show all signs of having seen many days. His slightly balding head inside which rests his creative brain is tucked inside a cream baseball cap.

Chemire joined his neighbour, the Kalenjin music legend, the late Kipchamba Arap Tapotuk, in Koilong’et Band towards the end of 1978. He actually does not easily remember the year but just knows that Kenya’s second president Daniel Arap Moi had just ascended to power following the death of the first president Mzee Jomo Kenyatta in August 1978.

The duo began with songs that praised the retired president that became so popular among the Kalenjin listeners of the period. The songs ‘Motinye Tisia’ and ‘Ureren Moi’ were ‘hit songs’ in this region in the eighties to the early nineties during the clamour for multi-party democracy.

Since then Chemire has sang so many other songs individually or with the late Kipchamba that he does not remember the exact number. He took this writer to one music shop in Bomet where we are given a bound booklet bearing photocopied covers of the cassettes that were produced by the famous Chandarana Records in Kericho. He identifies more than 20 covers that he says contain his own songs and a further more than 30 that he sang with Kipchamba over the years.

He then keeps on checking for some missing covers in the booklet, an indication that there are several other songs that are not included in the list.

Randomly, Chemire’s songs stand at around five hundred.

All his songs are full of important messages besides entertaining the listeners. He has touched on the negative effects of alcohol in several songs including

‘Masieng’eta’,‘Kilombero’ and ‘Kin kobosak maiywek’, importance of education in the song ‘Certificate’ and domestic conflicts in ‘Obot Pamong’et’  and ‘Sisili’ among many other social themes.

Chemire then gives us the background of the disregard for musicians in Kalenjin land and probably Kenya as a whole. He reveals that musicians were held with contempt in the community despite the important role they played entertaining people.

“Traditionally, musicians were not taken seriously by the society. They were not involved in development issues as theirs was just to entertain when needed,” Chemire says.

According to Chemire, these artists were provided with food wherever they went thus saw no need of doing farming as expected of ‘normal’ males. The musicians most of the time married very late while some never married at all.

Could these be the reasons why such artists are still viewed with contempt up to date?

For all his years in music, Chemire has nothing much to show for it. Most of his songs were produced by Chandarana Records in Kericho and he showed this writer a payment voucher from the studio in 2007. The voucher indicates that he was paid Sh355 as royalty in a transaction that is not very clear.

For instance ‘Sisili’ is both a song and the title of the album with nine other songs and it is not clear how Chemire earned Sh5 for either the individual song or the entire album. But for 60 pieces of ‘Sisili’ sold by Chandarana during that period, Chemire earned Sh300 in total, and he has a receipt to prove it.

The sensitive topic of music production is full of mystery and no one speaks figures, not the musicians or the so called producers. However, what can be deduced is that musicians are rarely paid for their work but are rather hired to sing for the producers who will continue earning from the music after paying a fixed fee to the singer.

Pirates are currently producing Chemire’s music and selling as cheaply as they can get without giving the old man anything.
He recently put some of his hit songs on video with the assistance of a budding artist and producer in the region, Makiche Rotich, and he is optimistic that, at least, he might get something from it. A spot check in the music shops around Bomet reveals that the video CD is flying off the shelves, and if all goes well, we might be watching more of the golden oldies on our screens soon.

One of his most popular songs in the video is the evergreen ‘Nora’ that he sang in 1986. In the song Chemire sings of his younger sister, Nora, who upon getting university education starts despising her siblings. She gives them leftovers despite her affluence that make them get heartburn.

Other songs in the video are ‘Chepting’ting’’, ‘Kimanyata’, ‘Respa’ and ‘Kanyanyet’, a good number of which are played daily by Kalenjin FM stations.