After the entire country went hard on him, demonizing him for behaving a bit unethically before the president last Saturday, Bahati apologized in an article published in our sister column MondayBlues on Monday.
He had taken showbiz jokes too far by ‘unseating’ President Uhuru Kenyatta and even resting in the President’s official seat during the Jubilee Party launch in Kasarani last Saturday and when he finally responded to a social media backlash a remorseful Bahati was sorry to all.
“The truth is I got really emotional and whatever I did could have gone out of hand. I truly love the President and I was only acting like a child would with a father. I am truly sorry to the President and all Kenyans who felt I did something wrong,” Bahati told MondayBlues.
That said, what was going through Bahati’s mind when he pulled such a stunt?
Here is the picture: Singing his four minutes 2013 hit single Mama, Bahati takes to the stage. The entire stadium is lit up, including the president who looks jovial...clapping and smiling.
Seeing that he has everyone’s attention, he walks towards the President, shakes his hand and gets him off his seat. The President obliges. In a normal occasion, Bahati would lead the President to a dance but at this point, he does not. He instead opts to take his seat as the President watches him on his feet. Bahati sings from the President’s seat and after a little while, he leads the President back before asking the First Lady up to dance with him.
This act goes on as Bahati moves on to the Deputy President, settling down again and singing on, even resting his feet on the water table. And further he grabs the Deputy President’s wife, turns her head gear upside down and gets her to the floor. She looks a little uncomfortable.
Even though the debate has been on whether Bahati did all that as a showbiz stunt, out of ignorance or simply out of emotions, the truth is there can’t be a final word on the act as opposing views will always root for their opinion.
Let us look at it from two views: One, Bahati is young and is still prone to stupid showbiz mistakes (we saw him sagging his pants before the President the last time he performed) and two the orphan he is, Bahati’s past has always had a way to show its true signs in moments like those.
Mama, the 2013 hit single Bahati was singing on Saturday is dedicated to his late mother in whom his entire survival, before he was abandoned in a Nairobi slum at such a young age, revolves.
“Nipe tu dakika, keti chini nikuambie,
Nachukua hii fursa mama, wacha nikuimbie,
Nipe tu dakika, keti chini nikuambie,
Nachukua hii fursa, na dunia isikie
Miezi tisa ndani yako kanibeba uchovu
Na miaka tisa kando yako ukinitoa uovu...” so does the touching first verse of the song go.
The track is one of Bahati’s most popular hits. The lyrics are out of real-life experience, the painful story of a celebrity who has risen from the biggest challenges anyone can think of. He has never been shy about it, shedding tears every time he recalls it. In fact, Bahati, on the shadow, lives for his late mum.
“As you have heard in my song, Mama, I was nine years when my mother passed on but now I have come to find out that I was actually seven then,” Bahati, now the most promising gospel singer told Pulse during a past interview.
“By the way, don’t shed tears if you get moved by the tribulations in my life as I am fully grown now,” he remarked back then.
“I had been living in ABC Kenya Children’s home in Kariobangi, until I learned of the passing of my father. I was in Class Eight. Somehow, I managed to attend the burial and it was after this when my step-brother took me. He is the only family I have ever known of,” Bahati told Pulse, of his guardian, Kioko Bahati.
Back then, Pulse had accompanied Bahati and his step-brother on a journey to his late mother’s native Makueni County where he had gone to trace his background.
The grueling two-day search was an experience, one that saw Bahati and his team face resistance and even life threatening hurdles. Into a remote village the team finally docked, and there was Bahati’s 105-year old grandfather.
The old man was utterly shocked. It was an emotional and fulfilling reunion. He informed Bahati that his grandmother passed on years ago, that spinning another emotional moment.
Those who know Bahati well are aware how he gets moved by anyone who appreciates him. Every elderly person has to him been a symbol of the parents he never had and at his age, what else can’t he do when the President himself, the First Lady and all the powerful people around them gives him a chance to live again. That is my take!
