My Best 10 Musa Juma Songs

My Best 10 Musa Juma Songs

[Musa Juma was celebrated on Radio Nam Lolwe on March 15^th being the 4^th anniversary since his death. Ramogi FM followed suit on March 20^th in its Benga edition by giving listeners a short history of the artiste’s musical journey until his passing]

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            The world is a miserable place to live in when your favourite artiste is long dead. And the saddest part arises when your wish that he may resurrect from the dead amounts to infantile imaginations that only delight existentialists. It is the tale with premature demise of rap legends: Tupac Shakur. Notorious B.I.G. Nate Dogg. The latter died the same day with Rhumba maestro Musa Juma on March 15^th, 2011. 

            Four years on we still hum to his songs. 

                                         [Courtesy]    

            Musa Juma or MJ, leader of Limpopo International Band, towered the musical landscape with authority, love, consistency, and discipline that when his last struggle with existence came, fans were appalled and irate with Death. Why did MJ have to die? Could he have lived just a little longer? Those are not questions easy to answer. It is like asking: who brought us here on Earth? Is there a Supreme Being that gives and takes away life? Musa Juma strived to address some of these themes in his songs that we shall look at. Here, I shall list my best ten though in no particular order.

1.      Rapar Owino

Rapar Owino literally means ‘Owino’s remembrance.’ In most African communities such as the Luo of Kenya, a dead person is still considered a part of the living. The dead is constantly celebrated in order to keep his memory alive within the relations he left behind. And that is what preoccupies Musa Juma in the song Rapar Owino. Off the album Hera Mwandu, Musa rebukes death and bitterly curses how it leaves families in grief, helplessness, and despair. He equates the occurrence of death to some form of endless darkness full of pain. 

2.      Safari

Safari continues with theme of the vainness of existence and how fleeting life is.  Meshack and I voted for this song because here Musa reminds us we are not in this world forever. Friends we cherish the most die. We shall also die. Life is all but luck. Coming from his album Maselina, MJ is troubled with Life-Death issues though in an entertaining way supported by vocalists that include Sande Asweda, Ken Watenya, John Junior (now a successful band leader), Jose Mzungu, Omondi Tony (Musa’s younger brother) and Vasco da Gama. Owacha Willy and Professor Azile compliment with the guitar. 

3.      Siaya Kababa

Almost every woman loves this song. My mother included. A woman I once dated always confessed her enduring obsession with Siaya Kababa because of the soulful and romantic manner in which Musa celebrates a woman called ‘Achieng.’ MJ fondly calls her ‘baibe.’ Show me a woman who does not like to be called ‘baibe’ and I also tell you an MP who does not take bribes. In fact, he consoles the girl: Kata isenyuol adwari ngimana (Even if you have a kid, I still need you in my life). How redeeming and assuring in a world where men fear to enter into relationships with single mothers. 

4. Raila

            Hear Musa as he begins his first verse: Kenya still in trouble, if we go to elections. Is it not true even today? As we approach 2017 elections against the backdrop of IEBC officials who ‘ate’ chicken and are yet to face the law; can we safely say the artiste is forewarning us in this song? Actually, the song is a celebration of Raila Amolo Odinga and his gallant role in the fight for Second Liberation. Like other Luo legends before him such as Gor Mahia, Luanda Magere, and Oginga Odinga (his father); Musa believes Raila has the power to save the country. The artistic celebration should be viewed from a traditional context where community warriors were seen as the saviours of those communities from both internal and external threats as mythologized in the tale of Luanda Magere. 

[Courtesy]

5.  Hera Mudho

            But love could also be darkness especially when materialism suppresses the seeds of romance. Musa sings: Hera gima rumo ki hero pesa to hero jachien (Love is pointless if money is the only denominator). The artiste says it is like shaking hands with the devil. Another track from the Maselina album, he cautions ladies against falling for men because of their material possessions such as fancy clothes, cars, and lifestyle. I partly agree. Even though man and woman cannot subsist on romance alone, money is essential; still, it should not define the relationship. It transforms the affair into some superficial nonsense of give-and-take. 

6. Osiepe

            ‘Osiepe’ literally means ‘Friends’ in Dholuo.

·         Osiepna/Osiepa – my friend.

·         Osiep – friendship

But Musa here sings about Osiepe. They include Aringo Tommy. Abura Jacky. Headmaster Abayo. Let me tell you something small about the latter. He taught my boy Michael Ogolla in primary school later propelling him to Maseno School and Kenyatta University (It is another reason why I love this song). From Ahero, he hails Odero Sherdy. And from Uyoma, Ongolo Georgie gets the props. Musa expresses his credit to those who have helped him in one way or another. Who forgets ‘friends in deed?’ Those friends who evacuate you from a financial storm especially when you imagine you have reached your wits end. Friends who rarely disappoint you. In hard times, you know the true friends. Whether they are blood relations or non-relations. 

7. Hera Mwandu

            The song features among other vocalists Prince Kassam (now deceased) and Salawowo Salapata among other band members. MJ continues on the path of love and its challenges of infidelity. The lyrics go:
Sami inena timiya luor baibe

Sami aneni tamiyi luor baibe.

Kaponi ibayo tichido chunya aa mama…

[My presence should make you respect me

And your presence should make me respect you

Because if you are unfaithful, then you corrode my heart dear]

Hera Mwandu plainly translates to ‘Love is Wealth.’ Connotatively, love is a form of investment between two mutual partners. That’s why Musa Juma throws more shots at gold-diggers. 

8. Freddy

So much for singing about a youthful and ‘cool’ Ja-Luo original and senior Royal Media Services official. Grapevine has it that Freddy Afune was a close friend of MJ and the Limpopo International Band. In fact, in Hera Mwandu, together with Gor Sungu (former MP of Kisumu Town East Constituency during my school years at Manyatta Primary), Musa profusely credits them as the ‘marafiki wa kweli’. 

9.  Ratego Baba

            We are frequently reminded to respect and love and appreciate our parents when they are alive with utmost devotion and dedication. And unconditionally. Because once they go to that other world where people don’t come back, it never becomes the same again. Ask those who have lost a parent or both. It is a devastating hollowness that nothing shall ever fill. Musa Juma pays tribute to his parents, but mainly his father. He recalls the journey they have travelled together as a family; a journey characterized by poverty, agony, and misery. In Ratego Baba Musa also extends the courtesy to introduce his three mamas (he came from a polygamous family) – Ojiko, Maria, and Awuor.

10. Fiance

            Love often dominated most of the material that was produced by the Limpopo International Band under the diligent stewardship of Musa Juma. It is a recurrent theme that echoes in other songs such as Maselina, Auma, Betty, and Moreen. In Fiancé, Musa says of his lover: Siboeki nikiwa na wewe karibu nami mama. Which lady out there does not like to hear such flattery? 

            Musa Juma is dead. He shall never come back. Those are facts. His brother Omondi Tony died, too. So prematurely. In a road accident. Just like the Benga maestro, D.O. Misiani. Other fine Luo artistes had gone before them. Okatch Biggy. Awino Lawi. Ochieng’ Kabeselle. George Ramogi. Collella Mazee. Adwera Okello. But their songs remain. Art outlives the individual, they say. So we shall continue to celebrate MJ every day. Of course the tinge of regret that I never met the Rhumba god while alive persists.  

Marvin and I: Brotherhood & Other Fragmented Memories

‘I guess we're really brothers, aren't we? Don't know what that means, except it means that some of the same things we remember.’

-― Tim O'Brien, Northern Lights

            My earliest memory with my brother, Marvin, is when after our mother had bathed us, we would squat on the grass to dry, our small ‘pens’ dangling about, and chatting about queer things. I do not clearly remember which year it was, but all I know is we were close from the onset. I am the eldest. Born ’89. Marvin came two and half years later in ’91. This piece is my birthday card to him because he turned 24 last Monday, exactly on March 2^nd.  

            Marvin and I are worlds apart in terms of personality as Mandela was to Mobutu. I shall not compare the personalities of the two per se, but, only draw to your attention how different we are. I am an extrovert. Sociable. Opinionated. I always speak my mind. Radical. Stubborn. But Marvin is the opposite of all those. Introverted you would think on meeting him for the first time that he is dumb. A moderate. He rarely toys with extreme views/opinions/ideas the way I do. While I am into books, world affairs (most of them useless anyway, like how does the recent assassination of Boris Nemtsov concern me anyway?), Marvin isn’t. 

For him, technology is the centre of universe. If hell has technology, I bet he shall go there. He is my-go-to-person when I want to learn about iPhones, IBM, Instagram. Phone settings when I am unable to navigate something on my Smartphone, WhatsApp (Actually, he is one of the family members who pressured me to sign up into WhatsApp, something I rarely use). I joined Instagram because I saw it on his phone. Not once have I Instagrammed! Never double-tapped in my whole life. 

In place of technology addiction, I have compensated with books. Lots of books. Ideas. I spend most of time imbibing ideas and thoughts of great and small men and women in accordance with a Socrates’ maxim to improve myself. I have no crystal-clear recollections of when my love for reading started. Early enough, though, I still recall my father’s countless leftist magazines such as Society, Nairobi Law Monthly (then published by Gitobu Imanyara), and Ngugi’s books: Petals of Blood and I Will Marry When I Want that I struggled to read to fruitless avail.

 Later, in primary school, our father would grow his obsession with buying us English Aid textbooks and storybooks. One English Aid book, I remember, I lost during my brief schooling in Thika. Thereafter, together with Marvin, we would narrate to him the stories to prove we had actually read those books. In class six, he bought me a storybook titled Captured by Raiders (I have forgotten the author) that one of my classmates, Morgan, remained with when we were moving from Kisumu to Kerugoya in 2000. Our family was forever moving because of my father’s job. If it was not Bungoma, it was Thika, Murang’a, Kakamega, Daraja Mbili, Khayega, Kandara, Busia. Even today, my father is always ready. Anytime he could move. 

Sometimes I wish Marvin would become altruistic and visionary like his former college-mate, Evans Wadongo, who innovated the solar-lamps to light up dark villages in Kenya and Africa. With Computer Science and Mathematics, he does not necessarily have to replicate what Steve Jobs, Wozniak, Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg have done – it would be too much weight to shoulder –unnecessary great expectations. 

No, I am not discouraging him from setting higher goals because even my Psychology lecturer, Dr. Mwaura, stressed the significance of positive role models. Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory style. If an individual has the opportunity to emulate creative geniuses as the ones I have mentioned above, who I am to dissuade him from charting his own path? It is only vital for him to identify a favourite path that excites him the most the way I did with English and Literature.

I believe happiness should remain absolute in all human endeavours. Not all of us can attain it because of the fractured nature of life and its endless savageness and brutality and bad guys out there always ready to maim or even murder a fellow human for nothing, but we can always aspire. 

P.S: By the way, Marvin rarely even reads my blogposts. I am not even sure whether he will read all this. Except for when I am published in the local dailies, I bet he has never read a single article in my blog. But this one, Marvo, please read it. 

Happy birthday.