How Goldie won the hearts of Kenyans

When Goldie Harvey, who died on Thursday night, was evicted from the Big Brother Stargame on the Sunday, July 15, 2012, she was devastated. She wept in front of a live audience and for a chatterbox, her words were limited. She did not expect to be evicted that night. She had had a bad day with Prezzo in the house, who had accused her of hiding his precious ring. All she could say was she had come to care so much about Prezzo.

Two days later in a phone interview with Buzz, Goldie was a completely different person. She kept on laughing and making jokes throughout the interview. She sounded like a really jolly and friendly person and not the picture of a gloomy person she had painted for herself in the house.

“To be honest, I am not disappointed that I have left the BBA house. It must have happened for a reason,” she said. Asked why she sounded so happy, she said she had spoken to her family and they were not disappointed with her at all. “They encouraged me, saying that it’s okay, whatever happened in the competition.”

And she went on to confirm how much she cared for Prezzo. “I don’t know what will happen to us when Prezzo gets out of the competition. Reality comes in different ways. All I know is that Prezzo is intelligent, good listener and kind-hearted,” she said.

Two weeks later, Prezzo made it to the final day in the house and that evening in Johannesburg, the two met for the first time outside the competition. Although Prezzo spent most of the evening answering questions from the media from all over Africa, and fans alike, they did spend quality time together. Plans were made and two weeks later, Goldie was on a flight to Nairobi to meet Prezzo, among doing other things. And the rest as they say, is history.

In an interview with Buzz after the reality show, Prezzo said he still cared for her. “Yes. I’m not done with Goldie, she is a great person with a great heart. We are definitely going to do a song together and see what happens next.”

Goldie showed so much interest in spreading her music to East Africa and the only way to do that was by doing collaborations with East African artistes. In early October, she flew to Dar es Salaam and met Bongo Flava’s AY for a collabo. As Prezzo flew in from Nairobi a day later, they recorded the song ‘Skibobo’ with popular producer Marco Chali.

“Goldie was a very friendly person,” AY recalls. “She was also very focused on how she can make fortunes through music.” AY spoke to Goldie last week while she was still in Los Angeles attending the Grammy Awards.

“She wanted to give me her new Blackberry Messenger PIN number and was planning to do a tour to popularise our song,” says AY. Within a very short time, they became great friends. “When we were shooting our video in South Africa, we kept on joking on the set through out, forcing the director Mike of Godfather Productions, to separate us to make work easier. We were that close.” It is still not clear if she had done a song with Prezzo, but she had recorded a yet to be released song with Navio from Uganda.