A Soprano for Sale: The "Yalio Ndwele" Hustles

One artist to another. It's the season of side-kicks and sell-outs for hire. This brother, MC Njagi, is a great entertainer, extremely talented. I thoroughly enjoyed his "Yalio Ndwele Sipite" parody. But it looks like someone at Jubilee Party noticed him and asked him to do a hit job with it. He sold out! The crossroads where easy money becomes a big piece of steamy cassava for many a hungry artists who later find themselves used up and scrounging for relevance.

This equally entertaining song, Mbele Iko Sawa employs the cheapest tactic of lumping a people into a cheap tribe-baiting stereotype-- says the Kamba have always been pro-establishment and opposition is new to them-- "upinzani ni ugeni kwetu sisi wakamba", so goes the song. Asi!

Has this guy never heard of the great anti-colonization female dancer/warrior, Syotune wa Kathake; Muindi Mbingu and the Ukamba Members Association? There's a long list of independent thinkers from that region. It's a sad day when an artist chooses to become a tool for stereotyping a people for someone else's political gain.

You may say- he has a right to take sides. True, not just a right, but a responsibility. But when artists take sides in politics, they should take the third side-- the side of justice, the side of the underdog in the streets who simply demands a better life because they pay their share in taxes and toil.

The third side is one that rarely pays, mostly leaves an artist sidelined by both political sides, but when that artist maintains a solid stand against selfish opportunistic politics, they become the voice that people listen for.

Lucky Dube. Nina Simone. Bob Dylan. Miriam Makeba, Fela Kuti... They took the third side, they paid a price, they are legendary. I'd like to add Eric Wainaina, whose "Sawa Sawa" album put him on the artist-the-warrior path, although still has ways to go before earning the legendary title.

But I get it, it's political bimborization time when people say or sing silly soundbites that win quick points for the side that is paying you. Maybe the other side wasn't quick enough to lure MC Njagi with a better deal, otherwise instead of "vitendawili sitaki" he'd be singing "ulevi na wizi sitaki". Both sides have used artists equally as creative hitmen (yes, hitmen includes women.)

Now, there are artists who become politicians, and that is absolutely necessary sometimes; but it takes a highly woke kind of artist to take that path. My favorite by far is the late Vaclav Havel, a playwright & stage director who became the revolutionary leader of the non-violent Velvet Revolution, brought down a repressive regime, and became the President of the Czech Republic. That's how woke you need to be!

Sere