ONE ON ONE: Harmonic Kings

Harmonic Kings started singing to keep themselves busy but seven years later, the group is still going strong. PHOTO| COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • We meet in 2013 while we were still in high school representing our various schools during music festivals at Afraha high school in Nakuru County.
  • We never thought we could ever come together and form a group as at that time we never knew each other.

Harmonic Kings started singing to keep themselves busy but seven years later, the group is still going strong.

They spoke to Nation.co.ke about their journey to success. The group is made up of Hillary Annallo, Shadrack Shikusa, Joseph Ongere, and Douglas Urani who are all between 23 and 30.

How did you meet?

We meet in 2013 while we were still in high school representing our various schools during music festivals at Afraha high school in Nakuru County. We never thought we could ever come together and form a group as at that time we never knew each other.

So what brought you together then?

Funny enough, our trainer spotted a talent in us which we had not discovered and he advised us that we come together for practice. Meeting for practices was hard since we were still juggling between classes but after sitting for our Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education exams, we decided to give it a try.

Tell me about your first performance

We remember our first performance was during Kenya Power and Lightning event in Nakuru, we were invited to entertain guests. It was scary at first but once we left the stage we left everyone wondering who we were since nobody had heard about us before but we managed to thrill those who were there.

Why the name Harmonic Kings?

We decided to use that name as a symbolic meaning vocals. We do our music without instruments we only depend on our voices. We do covers of other songs and we also have our own gospel songs.

Take us through your journey?

It was hard convincing our parents that we want to pursue music since we were fresh from high school.

They wanted us to pursue different careers but fortunately music won and they had no choice but to accept in the end.

Things have never been easy. Getting gigs sometimes is a hustle but we never lost hope.

You have to work hard to get what you want in this life. In our group we don’t have a leader. Everybody has a responsibility and a role to play which at the end contributes to our wellbeing as a group.

I assume it has not all been rosy for you. Can you share the challenges you have faced?

There is a time we had gone to perform at a certain event and while we were doing our thing, our microphones were switched off.

Though we have never understood till late what transpired but I was really embarrassing for us. Sometimes it is hard to get gigs but we always hope for the best.

How do you market yourselves?

Social media has been a great deal for advertising. We have our YouTube channel where we showcase our work through videos, Facebook account and Twitter handle which have our contacts for easily tracing. We usually perform on birthday parties whether for children or adults, cooperates events, in weddings and we also train music.

How much do you charge per show?

For that it always depends on how we will agree with the clients. Sometimes we are always considerate but the lowest we can charge for corporate event is Sh 30,000.

Any advice to a young person who are looking up to you?

Patience is key.  But the problem with us youths we always want an instant success. You should always be patient as you cannot start something then you want to see its fruits tomorrow.