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| Julius Mwale and Kisima Awards 2009 |
| Friday, 02 October 2009 08:48 |
 It’s never an easy matter dragging one's carcass from bed on a Saturday morning to head to a Mind speak event at the best of times. Now imagine that you have just come from attending a mad kililimbi event at the Carnivore just a few hours before. Then add to that the fact that you had read the invite to attend this event but you could not quite get the name of the fellow who had been invited to speak that Mindspeak business club. All I remember was that I had such a motivating experience listening to Caroline Mutoko doing her spiel in the event last month. I was sincerely just going on faith when I headed to the Westgate this Saturday morning. And the gentleman who was speaking was introduced by Ally Khan Satchu, who also owns/manages www.rich.co.ke, and even then I could not get his name correctly. Clearly the cobwebs were still in my mind yawa. However the dude started talking in some American accent and clearly this was a foreigner in our midst. Then he introduced his delegation which included his blonde and blue eyed wife Kayla (sp?) and a few others and his presentation begun. The man explained that he was born 33 years ago in Western Kenya. What?! Kenya? He then gave his life story and I listed keenly. He went to school for eight years with wearing shoes (and here I was complaining about how some sunglasses clad dressed chic in this pink Toyota Vitz splashed grimy rain water on my loafers forcing me to use those shoes shine guys from kiwi... NKT!). He first held a computer at age of 18 and eventually worked with the Kenya air force. He was forced to leave the country in 2001 seeking political asylum for reasons best known to himself. Eventually he took refuge in the belly of the great Satan the USA. He had to live in a homeless shelter for many months as the US government ascertained that he really was a man who feared for his life in Kenya. As he waited for the US government to legalise his stay there (and cowered whenever the dreaded initials INS were called in his presence) he was busy. He had apart from fleeing Kenya in fear for his life also lost his beloved laptop which carried code that he had worked on for many a hard night. He needed to get his code back but what was a man to do? He started working in New York libraries and recovering his code. Eventually he became legal in the eyes of the US and he could now start business. As a Kenyan what did he do? He could always open a stall and start yelling "fifty bob! hamsini! fifty bob! hamsini!" He could start flipping burgers. He could work in the infamous nursing homes. So many options... The man focused on this new computer code that depended on bio metrics. I could be wrong but for what I understood the idea was that one to access buildings and the like they would need a personal identification that was based on their biology. Kind of like those spy movies where generals and presidents use their iris or their arm print to access a top secret lair deep in the pentagon or the White house war room. And this dude was at that moment one of the few people in the world doing this code in the dark ages that was 2001. It was at this time that Osama decided to make the whole world be attacked by the infidel George W by attacking several sites in the USA. And this young man was writing code that could be used to reduce instances of the same. Talk about being at the write place at the right time. The short story here is that the dude eventually formed a company he called SBA technologies which is doing pretty well and hopefully will be listed on the NASDAQ sooner rather than later. We are talking about a multi-billion dollar valuation if what the dude was saying is anything to go by. Eventually he was going to start hawking SBA shouting “fifty bob! hamsini!” but he would taking about stock prices and not T-shirts with 50 cent and G-UNIT printed badly that fade after two washes. Off course all of us in the Westgate were just in awe. Wow. The questions were wide ranging. From how such a fellow lived his everyday life to what he feels the solutions were to Kenya’s problems. The man sleeps 8 hours a week. You heard me right. 8 HOURS A WEEK. Holy Mary mother of God! There were many more answers but this is man who clearly has a passion for living. His wife runs their foundation the American Institute for American Development. There was an Italian dude who asked some very sad questions to the guest sadly believing that he had all the solutions to Kenya's problems. That dude really needed a ngoto and it was on a very unsavory note that we all left the place. Eventually I headed into town and could find out the name of this visionary. His name is… roll drums… Julius Mwale. The evening had so much on offer. There was that TPF3 thing that people have been talking about quite a bit. And then there was the Arsenal – Fulham game. There was Oliver Mtudkuzi at Club Afrique. Suzzana Owiyo was doing her thing over at the Goethe Institute. And then there was the Kisima Awards. I opted to first watch the TPF3 as I followed the game on twitter. My predictions was bang on point as usual as Debarl left the house after his horrible singing of Nameless hit "Deadly." And the Arsenal won Fulham ... Yay. So I headed out to the place to say goodbye to Kingwa Kimencu who is headed to Oxford for some reason or the other (OK she is a Rhodes Scholar). This was surely my last time to declare my undying love before she went and came back as a big famous scholar. Sadly it was not to be. The place that Ed had told me about was empty so I headed to the Kisima Awards at the National theatre. The Kisima Awards is a very strange creature. It was formed many years ago by Kenyan music pioneer Tedd Josiah. From the very beginning the show has always had drama and the media outlets have relished this one. The first awards saw Five Alive carry away the best new artist gong. Not too funny if you consider that they had been around for a few years. The event stumbled along and I was a guest at the last "big" Kisima in 2004. The best male artist award went to Abbi and the whole crowd in the hay covered Carnivore grounds was left shouting, "Abbi? Who the hell is Abbi?!?" There were several other attempts to do the event with the new CEO Victor Mayeya as 2004 was the year that Josiah somehow vanished into the woodworks as far as this event was concerned. This year’s event had been postponed in 2008 from what I could tell. Amazingly the one nice thing one could say about was that the awards actually happened this time. And several awards were handed out to what looks to be deserving winners. Sheila Kwamboka famous for her stint at the Big Brother last time round was holding court as emcee and she was doing a stand up job handing out awards and generally making sure the gig went fast as could be. There were also a few decent performances from the likes of Jimmy Gait, Hottie, Boomba Clan, Binti Africa and Pentamony. There were also a few performances from people I had never heard off and who could not be bothered to introduce themselves to the crowd. There were also a few hot babe sightings like Meg C famous for her "Under 18" video vixen debut and her controversy with footballer Denis Oliech and whether her baby was in fact his. She just looked hot roho safi. The gospel fraternity has to be lauded for showing up to support this initiative. The secular singers have a lot to learn from the savedees where this event is concerned. Apart from this there was so much that went haywire it was like Murphy’s Law was ruling everything tonight. Try and imagine anything wrong that could happen at an event and it happened at this event. From hissy fits to blackouts during performances and what have you. Forget “wardrobe malfunction” and think more along the lines of “whole event malfunction.” It was not pretty. Is this the end of Kisima? The party animal in me seriously hopes not.  |
| Last Updated on Friday, 16 October 2009 09:01 |
jamesmurua:
RT @Kin0ti: @jamesmurua http://twitpic.com/2modxk - 1000? kwani its the box thea selling? < for sale as is.
jamesmurua:
RT @ksparta: Would u buy anything @ such an event? > @jamesmurua: Random auction at bus station http://twitpic.com/2modxk < Never.
jamesmurua:
Tetra Pak invests Shs 350 million in new technology to boost packaging http://bit.ly/9srEtI
jamesmurua:
Random auction at bus station. Also on sale motorbikes http://twitpic.com/2mof47
jamesmurua:
Random auction at bus station http://twitpic.com/2modxk
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Kenyans we shd wake up and support our own not foreigners.
http://www.havahart.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Animal repellent
http://www.havahart.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Animal repellent