Editor’s Note: Remembering Just A Band
I remember seeing Just-A-Band play a street party outside the Goethe in early 2011 for the band’s KUDISHNYAO exhibition that eventually travelled to NYC. Two years before this, the band published hitmaker, “82”; it could easily go down as the band’s seminal album in a short, but explosive discography that included perhaps the band’s single biggest hit, ‘Huff + Puff’. There are many others, of course, such as ‘Hey!’, ‘Ha-He’ and ‘Probably for Lovers’, but for the money, ‘Huff + Puff’ was the one that sold me for life.
The chorus was the big hook and when it dropped on stage, the streets exploded:
“I’m ready to disco
you gotta give me something and
I’ll give you something back”
Everyone knew ‘82’ was a great album, but when played live, it was a transformative experience—not just for any given performance show, but for Nairobi culture as a whole.
JAB was no ordinary band to come from Kenya. They combined their sonic-blender of hipster influences (from Rap, to Funk to EDM) with a new, emerging-cool, street-smart and irreverent attitude. They weren’t in it to pander to audiences or radio stations (on which they were rarely played) or even the fame (though they have been hugely received locally and internationally). They were in it for the art, and this clearly came through in everything they produced—from music, to exhibitions, to videos to books; they aren’t just musicians, the are creative troubadours, acting out a kaleidoscopic vision of the world through everything they touch.
And this is what will forever set them apart in the historic timeline of Kenya music. No Kenyan sound before them comes close to theirs—though through and through their music is purely Kenyan, documenting a moment in time that artistically represented the birth of a New Nairobi. In all the years of doing UP, I can sincerely say JAB helped usher in a new and modern art movement in Nairobi that re-wrote the rulebook—giving permission, if you will, for everyone to just chill and be themselves.
During their tenure, UP was born; visual artists working outside the typical African art milieu started selling works for millions of shillings (see Circle Art); the music, event, festival and club scene exploded; exhibitions, creative and tech hubs and collaborative spaces have blossomed. Is it just a coincidence, or can we say JAB has been on the sharp end of a Nairobi Renaissance (beginning in 2007 to present day)? I say, “yes” and “thank you.”
It may not yet be documented, as such, but when we look back, we’ll see how JAB put Nairobi on a new artistic trajectory that took us out of the staid and repetitive visions of Kenya and Nairobi as a sleepy African village painted by scenes of Maasai, Lions and Mama Mboga into a new sense of creative purpose. It was as if they threw off the shackles of what the world expected from an “African Artist” or a “Kenyan Artist” and simply became… just “Artists”, as their name would suggest.
Through their music, art and words they helped draw global attention to Nairobi as an emerging urban culture to be reckoned with. To me, this will always be their lasting legacy.
