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When you hear the name Wendy Kimani, Tusker Project Fame (TPF) comes to mind, but Kimani is more than the talent show her name has been linked to almost a decade after it stopped airing. She is now a mother of three-year-old Taji, wife to Onderwater, champion for the rarely understood Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) disease and still, six years on, a lover of music and performance. We start the interview on Zoom as is the new normal since the pandemic struck. Kimani is dressing up for a photoshoot for her new single and video, Pagawisha that dropped this early in the week. She is in her Netherlands home with her two friends that she fondly calls her 'glam squad’.
Wendy Kimani started her music career by auditioning for East Africa’s TV singing competition TPF. The Neo-soul influenced vocalist was one of the top 15 contestants on the show and eventually emerged the first runner up. The TPF experience she says was confusing, catapulting her to instant fame.
“For two months during the competition, we had no contact with anyone or even TV. Then on coming out, everyone knows you and wants pictures of you and wants you to sing to them. Everything including music releases were judged so harshly. It was a lot, so I became an introvert. The introversion helped with my personal development on my terms.
“The sudden fame brings to mind the case of my fellow TPF contestant David Major and the standards that the public creates for celebrities to live up to. David and I spoke on and off for years before we completely lost touch. People always talk about TPF money, but only the winners were awarded anything. I really want to get a chance to speak with him. I believe all he needs now is love and space. People are quick to give you things to do while you still struggling with mental health, which can worsen your anxiety.”
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She still went on to record with producers such as Tim Rimbui, Kanyeria and performed with the likes of Eric Wainaina, The Villagers Band and Gilad. Kimani launched her debut album titled My Essence in 2013. After she collaborated with Gilad on the release of Unajua music video that has garnered over six million views on YouTube and her last single Chali, she relocated and left fans wanting more. While she has not been recording for the last six years, she has been meeting musicians living in the Netherlands as she is considered an upcoming artiste there. “Besides enjoying raising my young family, I have been performing live shows and a few gigs for the Kenyan community in a couple of places in Amsterdam with the help of artiste Sialio.”
Now, she is back with a new single, Pagawisha, alongside a must-watch music video. “This is the first song I have done with producer So Fresh. It is my comeback song. I worked on the video with a small crew during the pandemic and despite the challenges, I am happy with the outcome.”
In the video, she takes off her wedding ring which begs the question, what in the world is she doing? “She is having a steamy affair. That’s what she's doing. But in the end, you find out that the affair is with her husband. She is spicing up her relationship,” she says that relationships do get boring, so roleplaying can bring back the passion. The song is also a double entendre. It points to her reigniting her love for music.
During this pandemic season, she has recorded about four songs in preparation for her 2022 album. At the same time, she teases her next single called Nipe Ile Love due to be released in February. It has got that South African house and dance vibe. Even with her corporate job, she found time to work on her music.
“We never really had a lockdown in Netherlands. There are so many companies here because of the tax break the Netherlands offers to expats so a majority were against a full lockdown. We were at about 10,000 cases a day, but most people worked from home. I was happy that my 30-minute commute to get to Amsterdam was cut short.”
You will also be entertained on her YouTube channel, Wendy’s New Normal, a lifestyle channel that follows her life in The Netherlands, since her relocation. “It’s all about rediscovering myself, marriage, motherhood, family, mental health, hair journey and also my Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) journey,” she reveals.
READ ALSO: Wendy Kimani welcomes baby boy
On why she started a YouTube channel, she says it was because “corporate world is not the most exciting thing ever.”
“When I came to Netherlands I went natural because I could not find a hairstylist for our type of hair. So I started researching and doing my hair myself and people were very interested to know what I did and how. So I started a channel to answer all these questions back in 2018. Fun fact: I named it before Covid-19 when the term ‘new normal’ had not caught on.
The PCOS is a huge part of her channel and she has been very vocal about it. She found out that she had PCOS at 18. “I started gaining weight, but since I had been skinny all my life I was happy to fill out. I was filling up in the right places. I was, however, also not getting my periods for up to two months at a time. You would think when I didn’t menstruate for a year I would be alarmed, but I was oblivious,” she says of a time when her music career was taking off. “I was in TPF, I was going to the studio a lot, so I just did not pay attention to my body.”
“It was my sister who recommended I see a doctor and after some tests, they found cysts and I was diagnosed with PCOS. With PCOS, the egg may not develop as it should or it may not be released from the ovaries during ovulation as it should be. Thank God I found out early. My insulin levels were so high because my cells were not absorbing glucose as it should. Besides adding so much weight, I was also depressed,” she informs us of the condition that she didn’t quite understand until when she considered getting pregnant.
“I dived deep to understand my disease. That is how I learnt how to use diet to live with my condition. At the time my doctors in Kenya had put me on contraceptives to bring back my period and diabetes drugs to deal with the insulin. Getting off the meds was disastrous, so I started incorporating diet changes slowly. I started with reducing milk intake, then gluten that is wheat-based products like bread and pastries, and added more vegetables. The changes were tough and slow, but it worked and the weight slowly fell off. I finally accepted my condition and its side effects even the unpleasant ones like excessive unwanted hair and acne brought by the hormones.”
READ ALSO: This is where six of your popular Kenyan stars relocated to
“Everyone has different symptoms and doctors look for symptoms which makes PCOS even harder to diagnose. I decided to talk about it in September which is PCOS month. The support was overwhelming and I have now built a community in Kenya of people that I plan to create recipes for.”
Being a good performer, she has starred in several films including Die Husband Die and Rush. However, she says that she has shelved that dream. “A lot of productions here are in Dutch, so it is unlikely that I will do acting while here. However, acting is one of the things I truly enjoy. If I am ever back in Kenya for a more extended period I will definitely find a role. But at the moment I am focusing on the music.”
