Retracing Fundi Frank: The successful entrepreneur and artiste

                                          PHOTO:COURTESY

The fully stitched entrepreneur sits comfortably in the lounge of one of the clubs in the CBD, with bling on his hands and neck. He has a Wakilisha East Africa shirt and Fundi Frank jeans spruced off with Gucci sneakers. It is midday and he is from another deal, on the spot for the interview before he delivers another batch of ordered clothes to a client.

“I am an emcee at the Lavish Beauty Pageant at Lavish Lounge,” says Fundi Frank, when I asked him what he is up to these days. “The club launched an annual beauty pageant and I help coordinate the event.”

He is also in Mseto Entertainment with Willy M Tuva and Deejay Flash, the team that is the brainchild of the popular Wakilisha East Africa hangout at Club Tribeka. He also dresses the team for the Mseto TV show.

“We do monthly tours to campuses around the region as Mseto Entertainment.” They are next set for Mount Kenya University in Kigali, Rwanda.

Fundi credits himself for starting Swahili rap in Kenya in the early 90s. By then operating in Mombasa as a rapper and dancer, Fundi went by the name MC Frank.  “I was an artiste alongside MC Boaz. We were later advised by one Deejay Kairo to get Swahili names. I became Fundi Frank and Boaz became Buda Boaz,” recalls the veteran entertainer, who due to lack of studios then, recorded themselves on cassettes. A close friend to the late Poxi Presha, the two curtain raised for Hardstone when Chaka Demus and Pliers performed in Mombasa.

“Hardstone told me to come to Nairobi if I expected my art to grow,” says Fundi, who was born and raised in Kitale before relocating to Mombasa when his parents passed on in the mid-80s.

In between, he had curved an interest in stitching, largely because he was looking for a fashion identity when performing. Improvising ready-made clothes to fit his standards, he was to later take it seriously.

“I was to attend a fashion school in the UK, but the processing became long and I just decided to do my own thing,” said Fundi, who relocated recently to Hurlingham, from South C.

Saying he has always taken music as a side hustle, Fundi was part of the birth of Kenya’s music scene, even with its myriad problems.

“There was no money then and I was mostly with Poxi when he went around relevant offices trying to fight for artistes’ rights,” said Fundi.

With Ogopa Deejays coming up with a new style now referred as Boomba, Frank changed his rap to become more acceptable, ditching the slow, rhythmic style that bore Ndai with K South to danceable music. Having done collaboration with most of the old school Kenyan entertainers, he was to lose interest after some songs done with K-Shaka got lost in Tanzania.

After doing Kenyan Lady, where he name-drops nearly all the female celebrities then, Fundi took a musical break. The break was to open doors for his political connections.

“I started making shirts for Hon Raila Odinga during the 2005 referendum. In 2007, the clients became many and I made brands for ODM, PNU, ODM-Kenya and the Summit members,” says Fundi, whose clientele multiplied in the past election with many aspiring governors seeking his services.

Apart from being a consultant for other local brands including Epic Nation, he has made apparels for AY, Jaguar, Chameleone and Nameless to name but a few.

“I have been able to rub shoulders with almost everyone who matters in Eastern Africa due to what I do,” says Frank, who is in his early 40s and about to settle down next year.  Musically, Fundi’s only regret is that he wrote a lot of songs that he never got to record, ideas that have become time-barred. As for the current trends in music, he has nothing but admiration.

“Everyone is now eating from music; deejays, artistes, dancers, event organisers, videographers and even producers. It is now a proper industry unlike our time when we were paid Sh200 or given soft drinks as payment,” he sums it up, cheekily.