CELEB BUZZ: Why Akothee’s star power is unmatched

Akothee deserves a lot of respect. It’s laudable how she came from nowhere and installed herself so firmly at the apex of Kenya’s entertainment industry.

A person who was once a struggling taxi driver is now one of the richest celebrities in the country. She is also the most popular female artiste in Kenya.

Wow! There’s starting from the bottom then there’s Akothee. They don’t call her Madam Boss for no reason.

It takes a special set of skills to be at the top of your field when you aren’t exactly the most talented in it. There are better female singers in Kenya like Dela and Avril but none of them matches Akothee’s star power.

I DON’T LIKE HER MUSIC

I must admit, I don’t like most of Akothee’s music but I like her personality. There are only a few songs I like from her, one of them being “Sweet Love” in which she featured superstar extraordinaire Diamond Platinumz.

I also like “Give it to Me”, in which she enlisted the shirt-hating Flavour and deployed his pidgin to a verse and a chorus. It’s a great party song that can shake arenas, a song fit to play when you feel like dancing and letting loose.

 The one titled “Benefactor” sums up my trio of Akothee’’s greatest hits. The beat is monstrous and that’s no surprise, given that it was crafted by popular South African producer Thomba Sekowe, otherwise known as DJ Maphorisa.

The rest of Akothee’s songs are, to put it bluntly, maddeningly amateurish and devoid of euphoria. They are Piriton’s cousins – fit for ushering anyone into their beauty sleep.

But does it even matter that she has such few good songs? Logically, being a famous musician should go hand in hand with releasing good music but Akothee grabbed this stereotype and tossed it out of the window

The manner in which she carries herself does the great work of smoothing over any pettifogging around her legitimacy and relevance to the industry.

Eventually what Madam Boss is best at, ultimately is not music or the intrigue of having Aretha Franklin cadences. What she’s good at is knowing how to keep her name in people’s mouths and minds as well as knowing how to move and act like a celebrity. What she’s good at is feeding her crowd with a constant chunk of showbiz manna.

There are times you really feel like hating Akothee but even when she does something silly, it’s hard to dismiss her as an attention-seeking celebrity who always churns out a bunch of endless melodramatic bollocks. Every time you feel like you should stop following her, she pulls you right back into her world with something new she says or does.

She has mastered this social media clout business like no one else and made herself one of the most satisfying people to follow. She provides a welcome plunge into a more humorous side of fame, not the begging-for-likes side often portrayed by other celebrities.

EXTREMELY WEALTHY

Despite the fact that she’s extremely wealthy, her posts don’t give you the ‘hey I am living a better life than you’ vibe. Instead, they give you the ‘hey I am having a lot of fun and you should too’ vibe.  

Her ‘Don’t Care’ attitude is quite admirable too. Akothee is one of the most criticised celebrities but she never seems concerned with addressing the central thesis of anyone’s castigation. 

In social media circles, Akothee-bashing is a regular, if not exhorted habit but the recipient of the flak never seems to care much. Despite the fact that she can be fierce and bold, she literally knows how to turn the other cheek when it matters most.

There are those who claim she brags and shows off too much but where critics see solipsism, fans see themselves. They see a person who jumped from grass and ascended into grace. Hence they are filled with belief, the belief that success will say hello on them too someday.

The other thing that makes Akothee so lovable is the fact that she’s such a great mother. All her kids are adorable. You can easily tell that they have been well-raised.

Her daughter Rue has even become a celebrity of her own and is now on the path to become a super-model, all thanks to mummy’s boost. Who wouldn’t want a parent that makes you a star?

Despite her faults and sometimes annoying nature, Akothee deserves all the praise.

For those who hate her and hope to see her change into a version that is more palatable to them, it’s really not going to happen. She will keep operating on the plateau where she’s been in all along.

No one does what Akothee does as well as Akothee, and Akothee isn’t planning to change in order to please anyone.

She gives what she gives. Take it or leave it shall always be her mantra.