Last week, I received an interesting email from a lady with an interesting name - Monixx. I initially thought it was from some Nigerian conman or some porn star- but the email was rather well written and invited me to call her on a Truecaller verified phone number. So, I contacted Monixx on phone and after few minutes of chatting with her I must say I was impressed. She could string more than a few intelligent sentences together and could tell the difference between total lockdown and containment. She was neither a con nor a pornstar. Monixx proudly described herself as a slay queen. She said she felt compelled to reach out to me because she wants someone to tell the sad story of slay queens and Covid today. She told me that she is sick and tired of the fact that we Kenyans are constantly poking fun at them and making memes of them forgetting that they are facing a real crisis.
Our hour-long conversation started with Monixx educating me on the types of slay queens. Contrary to popular belief, all slay queens are not the same. There are those who she described as part-time slay queens those who often have real jobs but have adopted the slay queen look- ‘massive horse hair,’ perfect make up, and the designer clothes and adornments. These part-timers use the slaying look to boost their ego, to outshine other women and of course get that extra advantage when it comes to favours, jobs and tenders.