What it takes to raise child star

From left: Milan Muthoni, 8, who acts as Millie in the Machachari TV programme; Liam Mango,5, whose pose in H&M ad drew global fury; the Moipei sisters Mary, Magdalene, Martha and Seraphine.

What you need to know:

MOIPEI QUARTET

Mary, Magdalene and Martha are triplets whose angelic voices are sure to melt the toughest of hearts. Add their sister Seraphine to the mix and what you have is a quartet that can bring down any house they perform in.

Their music has enabled them tour at least four continents to perform. Former president Mwai Kibaki gave the quartet a Head of State Commendation for their music and in 2011, their album In the Land of the Lion was won the prestigious SABC Crown Gospel Music Award South Africa.

The quartet’s journey into music was kick-started by their parents Nicholas and Christine Moipei who identified their talent early. Mr Moipei is a singer and has been the chairman of the Kenya Music and Cultural Festival.

YVONNE MAINGEY

She rose to fame by hosting Club Kiboko on KTN in the 1990s. She went off the screens at the age of 17 for studies in London and the United Kingdom. She would return to the limelight in 2014 as a news anchor at NTV, a stint she did for a year before quitting to focus on her PhD.

MOREEN NAIPEI

Fans of Tausi, a popular programme on KBC TV until 2000, will remember Lindi, the young girl who lost her parents and was forced to live with her aunt Rhoda. Ms Naipei was in nursery school when she was incorporated into the Tausi cast.

At Nairobi’s Huruma, where her family lived, she was scouted by the show’s producer Mr Kibwana Onguso, a neighbour, because of her confidence. Mr Onguso was then looking for a child actor. “It was fun, and a little scary. I was very young,” Ms Naipei told the Saturday Nation last November.

Tausi closed shop in 2000 and Ms Naipei was briefly involved in Kisulisuli, another show on KBC. “People still recognised me as Lindi from Tausi ... But I didn’t want the celebrity status,” she said.

Ms Naipei is now the Coast regional manager in charge of licensing for the Music Copyright Society of Kenya. Keen to keep a low profile, she declined an interview with Lifestyle.

KANDA KING (SAID MAHFUTH)

His sister Princess Farida and her African Rhythm Band was the reason he rose to fame. The sister used to take him to her shows and with time, he started imitating her.

“I chose the nickname Kanda Kid, as I was previously known, because I liked Congolese star Kanda Bongo Man who is famous for the Kwasa Kwasa style,” he told Nairobi News in 2016.

“My parents used to deny me permission when I was young. They could not let my sister go with me. But when they noticed that I was well behaved, they rested easy. When I completed my school education I left home and started living on my own,” Kanda King told Lifestyle.

Events of the past few days may have created a new child celebrity in Liam Mango, the five-year-old model whose pose in a jumper advertisement for multinational clothing retailer H&M declaring “coolest monkey in the jungle” drew global fury over the racist inference.

Now his Kenyan-born parents who live in Sweden’s capital Stockholm have been thrown into the quicksand of managing a child star.

And because he became popular out of controversy — which saw him draw the attention of celebrities like American musicians P Diddy and Weeknd, Manchester United Belgian footballer Romelu Lukaku and basketball star LeBron James — the parents have had to change houses “for security reasons” as his mother Terry Mango put it.

“I just want him to have innocence,” she told the BBC last week. Parenting a famous child is no easy task as Lifestyle has learnt.

Interviews with Gathoni Kimuyu, the mother of Milan Muthoni who plays Millie in Citizen TV’s drama Machachari; Roselinder Achieng whose daughter Zawadi Kayyoh is known for asking “naeza pata msister mdogo?” in an Ilara yoghurt TV advert; Kanda King who shot to fame at around five years and whose Form Two son is walking that path; and Mike Okoth, the father of Wolfsburg star Divock Origi reveal that minors in the limelight need special nurturing.

“One thing I have taught my daughter is not to let fame get into her head,” said Ms Kimuyu. “But sometimes the attention is too much for her, like when we go to busy places. She might not enjoy herself like the rest of the children because most people want to take pictures with her.”

Ms Kimuyu’s eight-year-old daughter who is in Standard Three first hit the screens when she was nine months old. Ms Kimuyu also plays the role of Halima in Machachari, where she acts as a Muslim woman. Since her early introduction, it has been a growth curve for the young actress, who has also shown talent in designing.

“My favourite part about her growth has been her being able to read her own script and internalising her lines,” she said. In terms of parenting, Ms Kimuyu said she strives to keep the youngster on a tight leash: “I try as much as possible to keep her grounded; not to make her think that she’s better than anyone else,” she said.

The Machachari show has nurtured arguably the highest number of child stars and Ms Kimuyu expressed her gladness that the young actors grew up well. The TV programme is, however, not the only platform where child stars have been created.

PERFORMING FOR POLITICIANS

There are others like Ryan Mwenda, the boy most known for reciting poems or making speeches at Jubilee Party functions, a number of which have been televised. Ryan, who turns 10 this year, was first exposed when President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee coalition launched its manifesto in 2012.

He also performed in Nakuru in April 2016 during a function to celebrate the dropping of charges against Deputy President William Ruto at the International Criminal Court. In September 2016, Ryan would also wow Kenyans by his performance during the launch of Jubilee Party.

Nikita Chepchumba is another child star who shot to fame through her powerful voice. In 2011, when she was aged nine, she got her breakthrough when she performed alongside gospel musician Emmy Kosgei when the latter was launching her album.

Then there is Wendy Waeni, an acrobat who performed so well in Nairobi during celebrations of Jamhuri Day 2014 that visiting Rwandan president Paul Kagame invited her to Kigali. Wendy started gymnastics at the age of four while living in Huruma Estate, where the group in which she performs used to practice.

Whereas Wendy toils to get a name, there are children who are stars by the virtue of being born to famous parents. For instance Ladasha Belle — the daughter of NTV’s Crossover 101 co-host DJ Mo (Sammy Muraya) and his wife, gospel singer Size 8 (Linet Munyali) — is already a star online. Ladasha will be turning three in November. Her Facebook fan page had 88,737 likes by Thursday, which is way more than the 32,679 likes for Huduma Kenya, a government-run fan page, for example.

Across the border, Tiffah Dangote, the daughter of top-grossing Tanzanian singer Diamond and his wife Zari, had 138,679 likes by Thursday, pointing at the huge following she may be receiving as she grows. For the child stars who have gained fame through their performances, the overriding theme is that their handlers discovered their talent early.

For instance Zawadi Kayyoh, the star of the Ilara yoghurt advert, recorded her first song at 19 months. In an interview with Young Nation earlier this month, Zawadi’s mother Roselinder Achieng said she was amazed that the girl could not forget lines of her first poem My Name is Kayyoh and was motivated to help her record a song.

On Friday, Ms Achieng told Lifestyle that she had envisioned her daughter becoming a public figure when she was carrying her in her womb, and that is why she chose the name Zawadi. The five-year-old nursery school pupil is managed by her mother, who hunts for performing opportunities for her daughter.

Zawadi has performed at high-profile events like the Cancer Gala Awards 2016, Nairobi Peace Walk and Prayer Day and the launch of 2017 Elections Monitoring Programme.

During Kenyatta University’s 2016 culture week, the National Cohesion and Integration Commission chairman Francis ole Kaparo used her poem for his speech. She has been featured in advertisements for Safaricom, Bidco, Seven Seas among other brands. To ensure that the child remains focused, her mother talks to her on the importance of humility.

“I constantly remind her that we are all created in the image of God and unique in our own ways. The good thing is that she is already used to this kind of life and sees it as normal,” Ms Achieng said. Whenever they are at public places, she encourages Zawadi to be nice to everyone who acknowledges her presence. And amid all this, she ensures Zawadi gets time to study, play with others and take part in leisure activities.

KEEPING UP WITH SCHOOL WORK

Speaking of study time, popular dancer Kanda King (real name Said Mahfuth) says he has put his son’s music activities on the low until he completes high school. “He did his first song in Standard Seven,” Kanda King told Lifestyle.

“I’ve paused him for a while since he joined secondary. During holidays, he records songs and keeps them,” he added. Kanda King was himself a child star who started hogging the limelight at the age of five. He grew by participating in activities of a music band led by his elder sister, Princess Farida.

In 1996 he changed his name from Kanda Kid to Kanda King. His firstborn son now uses the Kanda Kid name and is following his father’s ways of singing and dancing.

What is Kanda King doing to ensure the boy does not let stardom get the better of him? “Whenever I send him somewhere and he starts frowning, I don’t shy away from lashing him because he may be thinking he is already a celeb and can’t be told anything,” he said.

“In his formative years, his mother would also try to monitor him. She would make sure he did his homework,” he added. The risk with a child who has grown in stardom, Kanda King explained, is the friends around them.

“When a child becomes a celebrity and their peers and friends in school start praising him, he will reach a point where he thinks he can’t be told to do anything else. That is risky,” he said. Examples abound of child stars whose character got warped later in life.

There is Gary Coleman who moved masses in the late 1970s and the early 1980s for his role as Arnold Jackson the TV show Diff’rent Strokes. When the show production ended, his life was into one low after another.

He would sue his parents for mismanaging his finances and in 1993 he won a $1.3 million award (Sh132 million at current exchange rate). In 1999 he filed for bankruptcy. At one time he was forced to be a security guard, and one day while on duty he struck a woman who wanted his autograph. He died in 2010 aged 42 following bleeding inside his brain.

Another well-documented case is that of pop music legend Michael Jackson, whose tragic life in his adulthood, characterised by being a paedophile and a heavy drug user, has often been attributed to his being a star too early in life.

Other international child stars who also made news for the wrong reasons in their adulthood despite having thriving careers include pop singer Britney Spears, Tiger Woods, Justin Bieber among others. Drug abuse associated with most child celebrities could be a habit developed to address a gap in their upbringing according to Dr Catherine Mutisya, a psychiatrist who is the founder of the Nairobi Parenting Clinic based at Upper Hill.

Dr Mutisya says discovering a child’s talent is a defining moment. But when that defining moment becomes the hinge of the child’s self-esteem, problems arise. “The fact that you’re good in something doesn’t mean you don’t have a weakness on another line such that if you fail on the area you are weak at, then you lose your self-esteem. That’s why you see some people who are very talented end up trying to use drugs to try and fix a failure,” she said.

Asked whether there is a right age for parents to let their children display their talents to the world, Dr Mutisya said any time is ideal. All those who handle child stars, she advised, should not bend rules to suit them: “The discipline should still continue but you should praise the child for the good talent,” she said.

Former Liverpool forward Divock Origi is an example of talent tapped early. His father Mike Okoth, once a lethal Harambee Stars striker, told Lifestyle in an earlier interview that Divock — the only boy among his three children — had exhibited giftedness very early. “At five years of age, Divock joined his first professional club,” Mr Okoth said in December 2016.

Mr Okoth would later introduce Divock to KRC Genk, a Belgian Club he used to play for. The youngster would later earn a spot in Belgium’s youth teams before he made it to the national team, later playing for English Premier League side Liverpool and currently German Bundesliga club VfL Wolfsburg.