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Oct 20, 2024 | 
oralseastafrica.news | Stanley Gazemba
Inyali, Chavakali, in Western Kenya, farmers are abandoning tea farming, a crop that has sustained centuries of imperial British power and has remained Kenya primary export crop, but owned by British multinationals and presently Private Equities. The colonial crop has been unable to shed its extractive nature, fixing prices through gatekeeping brokers that has left farmers no choice but to exit this market, for alternatives as free people.
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Oct 14, 2024 | 
oralseastafrica.news | Stanley Gazemba
When I was a kid growing up in this tiny hilly hamlet called Inyali in Vihiga County there was a memorable glow to the village homesteads around this time of the year. It is the time when, if you took a stroll on the village paths and perked up your nose you would catch the aroma of frying beef, chicken or chapatis wafting out of the thatched kitchen huts as the tea farmers fattened up after a year of starving themselves on boiled magaraba and maseve veggies.
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Nov 16, 2023 | 
debunk.media | Stanley Gazemba |Lewis-Miller Kaphira |Lorna Likiza |Isaac Otidi Amuke
It is a Friday afternoon and we are parking our bags on the roof rack of a tour bus outside The Heron Hotel in Milimani, preparing to go spend the weekend in the bush like proper tourists sans the ‘Hakuna Matata’ t-shirts and tan Safari boots. I am excited because we are leaving the city and its maddening traffic and noise. Much as I love to stay in Nairobi for the work and business opportunities it presents, I know that it is not the friendliest city to live in.
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Nov 8, 2023 | 
debunk.media | Stanley Gazemba |Mwalimu Mati |Bernadette Muthoni |Mulle Musau
We had been booked in Lamu for the entire Christmas period, after which we would be flown back to Nairobi. But what the Kwani?
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Nov 3, 2023 | 
debunk.media | Bernadette Muthoni |Kiprop Kimutai |Stanley Gazemba |Musembi Wanza
It had been about three months since I played in an orchestra. I longed to be back on stage, but was waiting for repertoire that was exciting and interesting to me. There had been talk of a performance of Elijah, an oratorio by Felix Mendelssohn (to be put on by the Nairobi Music Society and Nairobi Orchestra) in 2023, and when this was confirmed for April, I could not wait to be part of it.
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Nov 2, 2023 | 
debunk.media | Angel Lovely |Mwende Ngao |Rasna Warah |Stanley Gazemba
I was not always a productive person. In fact, while in uni, I sarcastically referred to myself as the queen of procrastination. Aware that I was living below my potential, I would make endless jokes about this habit and console myself by saying that at least, I did that like a pro! My days would start at mid-morning and before I knew it, it was evening and the day would end! There was barely enough time to get anything done and I was always late – for everything.
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Nov 1, 2023 | 
debunk.media | Stanley Gazemba |Otiato Guguyu |Rasna Warah |Eddy Ashioya
In 2006, just after that year’s Kwani? LitFest had ended in Nairobi, Binyavanga Wainaina and the Kwani? crew, who were my publishers at the time, flew us to the ancient and exotic Lamu town at the Coast on a budget Fly540 flight. The trip was supposed to be some kind of extension of the Kwani? literary festival, where panelists from Kenya and elsewhere who had given their time to speak literary-shop in Nairobi were now being given a small treat.
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Oct 27, 2023 | 
debunk.media | Stanley Gazemba |Ras Mengesha |Wairimu Kagichu |Chia Kayanda
When I was eight years old, I visited my favourite barber Boni’s shop at least once a month. This was the only way I could get the latest issue of Supa Strikaz. Back then, when you could get a clean shave for 20twenty bob and the blue notes were still in circulation (xxx), Boni would buy the Sunday Nationnewspaper, pull out the comic, and give it to me for free when I arrived. For a long time, he was my hero.
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Oct 27, 2023 | 
debunk.media | Stanley Gazemba |Ras Mengesha |Wairimu Kagichu |Chia Kayanda
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Pete Larson (of the Dr. Pete Larson and his Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band), an epidemiologist, nyatiti player, and founder of Dagoretti Records, approached the late Grandmaster Masese (real name Dennis Dancan Mosiere) about doing a project on the Obokanomusic of the Kisii people from the Nyanza region of Western Kenya. Masese was a master of the Obokano, a traditional eight-stringed lyre similar to the Nyatitiof the Luo and the Litunguof the Luhyia.
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Jul 5, 2023 | 
debunk.media | Stanley Gazemba
The recently concluded World Rally Championship (WRC) Safari Rally has yet again lived up to its billing as one of the toughest rallies on earth. This is due in part to the unpredictable weather conditions in which the competitors did battle for the four days of the 350-kilometre action.
