Artistes with too much sizzle and not enough steak

In one of Nonini’s songs, ‘Ngoma Yako’, he says; ‘Sitaki kukumbukwa kama walio vuma, nataka mnikumbuke kama anaye vuma.’

In simple language, Nonini wants his music to hit even long after he’s gone, as he explains in the song.

In Kenya’s music industry, there are quite a good number of artistes who kicked off their careers around the same time as Nonini, are either already in the ‘Waliovuma’ list, or headed there.

Among them is one Shankyradix, a ragga musician who kicked off his career very well in the late 90’s in the group One-2-Moja.

This is the same group that produced a well renowned ragga hearthrob, Redsan, who is doing very well in the entertainment scene both locally and internationally.

What happened to Shankyradix is yet to be known.

In 2005, Shankyradix, together with Lyrical Erico, another member of One-2-Moja, made an attempt to get back into the industry with a club hit ‘Bambika’.

But after the song did quite well, they sort of ‘forgot’ to do a follow-up track.

Several other attempts for Shankyradix to bounce back are still yet to materialise since he is still yet to create a hit song for this market.

Second on the line is Delicious. He commanded a lot of media attention and club hype back in the early 2000’s with his song ‘Tamu Sana’, but that is as far as it goes.

After riding on the same track for several years, mostly performing in the rural towns, Delicious attempted a comeback last year with a new jam, ‘Usiniache’.

This song is still yet to break into the mainstream market, and with his almost a decade stay in the industry and still struggling to make it, he joins the likes of Shankyradix.

Jerry Joe came with the song ‘Sakata’, well produced by Ogopa DJs, also did well in the early and mid 2000s.

He was able to compete with most of the mainstream musicians and got lots of big shows with the same song.

But his follow up songs did not do as well as and he slowly started disappearing from the limelight.

Drawing board

Wakimbizi had the biggest songs in the early 2000s as well, but they never maintained the hype they started with.

Their first album was a hit, but the next one took them back to the drawing board since almost none of their songs commanded as much airplay as the tracks in the first album.