No Laughing Matter

Once upon a time, three university pals in their early twenties formed a comedic trio at the height of President Daniel arap Moi's dictatorial reign. Moi ruled supreme, to the extent that to imagine his demise was declared a crime punishable by death. Political enemies disappeared, or were arrested in the middle of the night and taken to torture chambers. No one voiced their real feelings in public. You never knew who might be listening. Phones were bugged and conspicuous informants sat in on university lectures, trying to blend in. Even after the first democratic elections in 1997, Moi still ruled over a cowed nation.

It is therefore remarkable that it was against this backdrop of fear that Redykyulass was formed. Watching these three campus kids – Walter Mongare, John Kiarie aka KJ and Tony Njuguna – staging skits that publicly ridiculed the dictator and his sycophantic government, was a new form of freedom in itself. A scary kind of comedy: a real-life David giving a real-life Goliath a raspberry. Their rib-splitting act, operating under the name of Redykyulass, may have had audiences doubled up in tears of laughter, but behind the laughter grew reverence: cutting-edge as their humor was, these boys were either brave or suicidal.

Their best-loved skit depicted President Daniel arap Moi, a rather stern, conservative old man (played by Walter) arriving through the cheering audience (transformed into exultant crowds at a typically African political rally) carried shoulder-high by sweating aides. The 74-year-old 'president' would then break into a lewd, hip-thrusting dance routine joined by an unlikely dance partner – his aide-de-camp. The routine floored the crowd every time. This wasn't just fresh; it was political satire at its funniest, most fearless and most ridiculous. The fame of Redykyulass spread through the land like wildfire. Bars would come to a standstill after the news when their show came on, parodying the news we had just watched.

And as we laughed, increasingly less fearfully, their comedy became more sophisticated and satirical. His Excellency, the President Daniel arap Moi, philosophizing and contemplating life by a lake; playing a piano during one of his dance trysts; displaying his love for the greatest defender in his cabinet, Kamotho (they would be shown running in slow motion towards each other, president and sycophant, and singing: “The greatest love of all is happening to me…”). Redykyulass had unwittingly shown that the Emperor had no clothes and in a powerful way contributed to the psyche of a nation hungry for change. But, come democracy, what was Redykyulass to do next?

2002 found Kenya struggling with transition. Mwai Kibaki had ridden to power on the shoulders of an alliance of oppositionists, the Rainbow Alliance coalition. Kenya, which had stood united by the euphoria of throwing out Old Man Moi, had later fallen apart, and with that fracturing of goodwill all semblance of trust flew out the window. Over the first five-year term, the country's economy had grown stronger, but in a way that was beneficial only to Kenya's growing middle class. As costs for basic commodities rose, the poor felt more disenfranchised. In government, corruption and grand theft became more insidious, and leaders more selfish. MPs continually passed bills to award themselves greater increments and were soon the highest paid Members of Parliament on the continent. Traffic soon clogged Nairobi's center as extra capital was converted into cars. Shopping malls expanded triumphantly.

As stomachs across the nation either protruded or rumbled with hunger, the divide between the rich and poor grew wider. And the hiss of “they only” began to rise from the dust. “They” are the problem, growled the discontented youth, as they realized that voting Moi out did not mean that his cronies had left the building. Indeed, Kibaki himself had once been Moi's Minister of Finance and John Michuki, his closest cabinet aide, had been part of the colonial government. Poor and struggling Kenyans realized that changing the government had not been a leap onto new ground, that the incumbent president's rallying cry of kazi iendelee (let work continue) was mocked by the opposition cry of kazi ianze (let work begin).

The members of Redykyulass (still youthful, with the youngest member, KJ, at just 27 years of age) were by now all highly politicized beings who recognized that although the youth were the country's outstanding majority, disillusionment in their own power had left them too lackluster to give politics serious thought. Like many apathetic youth around the world, their futures looked bleak to them. However, riding the crest of a wave on entertainment that appealed to the youth, Redykyulass recognized that with liberalization and democratization also came a new authority for the entertainment industry. Walter, who had once played Moi, now had an alter ego named Nyambane, who was co-host of the country's most popular breakfast show and arguably Kenya's best loved comedian. Besides that, he managed the trio's musical band. Tony was now an advertising professional who churned out successful advertising campaigns for the country's largest advertising agency. KJ, a cartoonist, was also perfecting his political stance as a much sought-after MC for numerous company functions. On top of these individual achievements, the trio was booked solid as Redykyulass on any given week in the year. Their weekly show “Red Korner” was one of the highest-rated TV shows in the land. Their comedy remained bold and irreverent, and as always there were no sacred cows. The new president's highly-strung, controversial first lady, played by KJ, was a favorite, and they famously recreated her night-time storming of the Nation newspapers, where she slapped a reporter and screamed at the cameras for hours, waving the offending newspaper article. The article had been headlined by the Nation's rival paper, The Standard, something the First Lady failed to understand. Soon after, the trio's manager received a call from the serving Minister of Security, Chris Murungaro, asking them to lay off. They didn't. Their popularity soared. And, in the midst of their backbreaking schedule and steady appeal, they came up with an ambitious plan to transform Kenya's political landscape.

In the early 80s there were no Kenyan youth icons. A youth survey done for the advertising agency McCann Erickson in 1994 revealed that the only youth icons were Jesus Christ, mum, and occasionally, internationally celebrated Africans like Nelson Mandela and Kenya's most famous runner, Kipchpoge Keino. Back then, local artists were despised by the youth who considered them Old School. But by the late 1990s, thanks mainly to the liberalization of the airwaves and the birth of Kenyan hip hop, the power of the Kenyan Celebrity was stealthily growing.

Redykyulass had indeed grasped an important insight: that the only thing that seemed to truly move and motivate the youth was music. On the radio, songs of revolution and disenfranchisement blared. Sisi wa maghetto…they of the ghetto were speaking out loud to a growing constituency. Music was an escape from despair, from joblessness, and it was serving to unite them and their fans into a hip hop nation unrecognized by an aged, dismissive authority. In the midst of this and the run-off to the 2007 elections, Redkyulass, in conjunction with the IED (Institute of Education & Democracy) and Tru Blak Entertainment's Kevin Ombajo, kicked off a campaign to get the youth to vote. Their rallying slogan was: Vijana Tugutuke, ni masaa yetu. Youth, arise, it's our time.

First, they had to convince the celebrities to join their cause. Their argument was persuasive. If (they reasoned with the artists) a younger government was in place, then youth issues like music piracy, joblessness and support for the arts would be prioritized. It was a compelling strategy. The artists listened and jumped on board, and the countrywide concerts began. The mechanics were simple. Come to the concert grounds with a form of ID, get a voter's card on the spot, and once in, be entertained by a dazzling array of music and TV stars all telling them that their voter's cards were the first step in the journey to reclaim control of their lives. They needed to choose their leaders wisely based on their youth agendas. Artist after artist reinforced the message that they needed to vote.

For over a year Redykyulass, in collaboration the ECK and the Institute for Education and Democracy, systematically toured the country, staging concerts. Moving trucks of stage equipment, technical crew and artists was no mean feat, but Big Kev and his extremely young team, many in their early twenties, made it look easy. So organized were they that many sections of the media refused to believe that they were not receiving massive financial backing from the Old Guard. As a result, little news of the concerts trickled into the mainstream press. Despite that, crowds in far-flung areas, who previously could not have dreamed of seeing their heroes and heroines up close, read the leaflets, and listened to the vans with loudspeakers that circled their markets and towns reading out a dazzling list of performers. The youth heard, and turned up in tens of thousands for the concerts. In Meru, a field of fans sung along to Amani and her girls; Mighty King Kong, Kenya's best known artiste, swung his crippled legs this way and that – a meter above the ground – as he hopped to the music on his long poles; the group Kinyana, muscle-bound and furious in tight white T-shirts, making all the girls scream, pounded out their hardcore ghetto lyrics that lambasted the government; Jua Kali with his seductively raspy voice rapped about the frustrations of being a youth; and Mike Rua, Kenya's most famous guitar player, had audiences cracking up with his cheeky lyrics. In Isiolo, the imams, furious that music was being played so close to prayer time, encouraged youth to stone the performers. But on they pressed…Nakuru, Lamu, Kisumu…everywhere, the response and attendance was overwhelming. And, with every town and every concert, Redykyulass and Big Kevv pounded their message out: Vijana, Gutuka! Youth Arise! Your time has come! Vote! Everywhere they visited, Tony told this story to a wide-eyed, wide-eared youth:

“I'm here cos I'm confused. I was told I’m a future leader of tomorrow. I studied, was given school fees. And told again that I was the future leader, one with strength. I went on and studied more…got to university. And there, they told me I am a bright future leader of tomorrow. I went on – I married, got a wife. Then had a child. I was still told I am a bright young future leader of…? They said I was the future leader of tomorrow. Should we accept this story or leave it? Shall we abandon this story?

(Crowd roars)

“What we are saying is…Leaders are youth!”

(Crowd roars louder)

“More fire!”

The campaign gained momentum and the voter's registration count swelled for months after each concert. In Nakuru, 30,000 attended the concert, and voter registrations clocked an all-time high months after. Here and elsewhere, the electoral commission attributed the surges in registration directly to the concerts.

It is not surprising that the boys from Redykyulass and their partners were soon receiving offers running into small fortunes to allow partisan MPs and politicians to jump on their bandwagon, or rather up onto their traveling stage. Somehow, they held firm. They had one rule for any politician, no matter how big or influential, who tried to get onto the stage to address the thousands of sought-after youth votes gathered around the stage: “If you get on this stage, you don't talk. We're tired of your talk. You dance”.

The official leader of the opposition and the government spokesman found that to be true when they attempted to address the crowd. The jeers forced them to dance. Finally, powerful men dancing to the tune of the young.

The last performance of this nationwide voter's registration drive was a mammoth concert attended by over 100,000 people, and it was held at Uhuru Park in the center of Nairobi.

Samuel Kivuitu, the eccentric and often outrageously rude white-haired chairman of the electoral commission, famous for his irreverently rude statements, referred to as Kivuituisms, was there, and he climbed the stage to announce to the crowd that for the first time in the history of Kenya, over 50% of all registered voters were under 35 years of age. He asked them never again to claim that they had no real power. It was now in their hands. The government, panicking, began a garbled series of campaign messages targeted at the 18 – 30 year olds. Stanley Githunguri, a Kikuyu man of over seventy years, erected a huge billboard in his Kiambaa constituency and on it, in a see-through attempt to engage with his younger constituency, changed his name to the hip, street version of Stanley, Stano. Kamlesh Patni, the Hindu fraudster turned Christian pastor, best known for masterminding the biggest economic swindle in the history of Kenya in 1992, had thrown himself into the race with yet another huge billboard, displaying the youngish phrase: “Mimi ni moja wenu”. I'm one of you. But the youth weren't having any of it. They had been listening to a different tune, a danceable tune, even! The government of old men trying to talk young must have sounded strangled to their ears.

By the week of elections, 70% of all registered voters were the youth, reflecting the true demographics of Kenya for the very first time. To fully understand what a revolution this was, it is important to know that in the 2002 general election, of a total of 17 million eligible voters, only 11.2 million registered. And of those, only 6 million voted. Of this 6 million, just 7% were the youth. A predictable race against a government that had transformed Kenya's dull economy into a bright and hopeful one was now suddenly too close to call.

And the country was highly charged. All polls had predicted a very close race, but Raila, choice of a previously disenfranchised youth population, was always in the lead.

The trio of comedians was no longer a laughing matter. To separate their comedy from their political messages, they stopped all comedy and began to preach a message of awakening. No longer were Redykyulass to be seen jesting or satirizing politics. They had become the force behind a much-underestimated wind of change, setting the scene for the greatest paradigm shift ever experienced in Kenya's political scene since independence in 1963.

KJ, one of the trio, declared a stand to run against an older but much respected matriarch, Beth Mugo, in a hotly contested Nairobi seat. His election race typified what was happening around the country. Younger, politically inexperienced citizens were running against older, more established, richer ones. And looking like they could win.

On December 30, 2007, the election results were announced. KJ was not amongst the winners. But he and all youth like him had created a change in perception. Getting my hair braided in a Luo-owned hairdressing salon, I witnessed the excitement as his lead increased over Beth's. Hesitant in English, the young Luo braiders, in rapid-fire Sheng, told me how excited they were that he, a non-Luo, was, for that brief moment, ahead in the polls. His ethnicity did not come into question.

“You know,” they said, “when KJ gets in, he will be the youngest Member of Parliament.”

But, all at once the excitement died, as Mwai Kibaki was declared winner. The Establishment had won, amidst cries of foul play and allegations from local and international observers.

The country began to burn.

By all accounts, most instigators of the post-election violence were youth. Furious and feeling swindled, they transformed from the hopeful leaders of today they were certain they were going to be, into a mass ripe for revolt. Churches burnt. Women and children were massacred in a cyclone of violence that was not so much a statement of ethnic hatred but more a revolt against betrayal that quickly morphed into ethnic hatred. The Kikuyu, the ethnic group which Kibaki is from, paid the heaviest price, shouldering much of the backlash from every corner of the country. The civilian revolt against betrayal left virtually all of Kenya smoking and scarred.

The chaos that was visited on Nairobi and the country at large found many things going on. It found Raila, the fiery ODM opposition leader with countrywide youth support, and Mwai Kibaki, the hastily sworn-in President of Kenya, unable to sit at a table and put the fire out. It found Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, smoldering; its shops, restaurants and roadside vegetable stalls charred, lifetimes of friendship bludgeoned, neighbors turned to eternal foes. It found thousands of citizens of Kenya starving, in makeshift refugee camps of the kind we have become accustomed to on news footage taken in neighboring conflict-stricken countries.

But in a suburb of Nairobi, off Ngong road, at the Tru Blak Entertainment offices, it also found the boys from Redykyulass and their partner Big Kevv acting as a pivot point for a group of young entertainers, activists, journalists, news anchors, television hosts and more. Barely had they taken a breather from the pre-election frenzy before spinning around to respond to the outburst of violence that had turned thousands of Kenyans into refugees. Reactivating the Jaza Lorry (Fill the Truck) campaign created by themselves in 2005 to cope with the famine in Kenya was, they ruled, the quickest way they could respond. (Jaza Lorry, back then, succeeded in feeding 4000 people for an entire month, easing somewhat the humanitarian crisis in Northern Kenya.) Just a few days after the violence erupted, the compound off Ngong road was already filling with bags of food and clothing for the thousands of internally displaced people: people who just a few days before had spent hours queuing to vote, but now were spending hours each day queuing for food aid. And the humanitarian actions of this group of young Kenyans went largely unnoticed by Kenya and the world. They were working on faith and a zero budget. Without funding, this brave initiative could have at anytime ground to a halt, but that demoralizing thought did not deter their efforts. Artists streamed in on foot, by public transport, in borrowed cars, to contribute the one thing they each had to give: their talent. But the cameras were all trained on the Serena Hotel, where peace talks were taking place underneath the whirr of electric air conditioners.

Sometime during the early days of the violence, while sitting in a room in the Tru Blak compound that was packed with Kenyan celebrities brainstorming on how to find a way to feed the hungry and settle the displaced, a German TV crew cornered a broody Big Kevv and asked for his final word. What he said, in short, was this: “In a two-year civic education plan we told the youth that their vote would make a difference. What do we tell them now? This election has been the biggest blow to democratic elections, ever.” Glancing across the room to where the members of Redykyulass were busy organizing the dispatch of humanitarian aid to the refugee camps, he paused, as if in thought. Then he stared full into the cameras, and said: “But the struggle continues.”