If they Made Songs for Street Dwellers

It was old man Joseph Kamaru who sang about Nairobi being the place with most love tombs; that Nairobi kills love faster than a girl can smile; that women in Nairobi have no qualms snatching a man from his wife and children. They have no problem emptying a man’s account then spitting him on the street. And men, as classic Kamaru poetically put it, have no shame betraying their families for a brown thigh.

Yet it’s not this circa 70s portrayal of men as hapless creatures who fall to devious women of the city that makes me love Kamaru. How could that be the reason? Rather it’s because he dedicated this and other songs specifically to us women of the Street, quite an honor indeed. As much as some of you may think it a dubious tribute, it’s something that hardly happens anymore. No musician composes songs for us of the Street. Sure I have listened to songs where we have been mentioned in a sentence or two but it’s mostly lightly and often using us as similes. I remember one insensitive musician who sang: If they Made Songs for Street Dwellers “I brought you to Nairobi and you started dressing like a woman in Koinange”.

Considering our numbers and influence in the city, we deserve more songs dedicated to us and which go beyond the stereotype to the interesting and positive aspects of our work; a la Kamaru. I don’t know why present day musicians only mention us in jest yet some are our faithful customers. Ignore those smooth girls you see in the videos, many musicians have sworn by our no strings attached relationships. I also know there arenumerous songs that have been done for manzi wa Nairobi, who we are by virtue of being in this city. But nine out of ten of these kinds of songs are of lust; of the manzi’s eyes and what not. Lust partially drives our business, the reason I dislike these songs. Who wants to be reminded of work when their purpose of listening to music is to relax?

Maybe I should stop lamenting and release the song that I want done for us. If you have passed the Street between 2:30 and 4:30 in the morning you know we can sing. Never mind the voices could be a little shaky and some notes too high—those are the effects of staying out in the cold shouting “honey” a million times. Otherwise if we can sing fairly well in cold harsh weather, then we can excel in a pampered studio sipping warm salty water like I hear producers make musicians do. We would be spoilt for choice on what to sing about. For a start we could go all hip hop mentioning how bad we are and how everyone in Nairobi mentions our names in awe. How haters, in this case married women and county askaris, will be worn out by our success until they kill themselves. In the video we could show diplomats and deep pocketed business people driving slyly and picking girls from our end of town. The hit in our album would be the song about our work and aspirations. Where we have come from, what we are doing and where we are headed to. It would be a ‘courage sister do not stumble’ kind of song. With that in mind let me try my hands at the lyrics:

I sleep, strip for a shopping spree
I don’t judge or budge; all I want is my purse to bulge
Man if tense come I tease you for some tens

Does it make sense? Guess I am in the same rhyming league as other Kenyan musicians. Though here we have some common music tastes, for instance although we all love Juliani and corrupted versions of Bob Marley, we have personal favorites, songs we identify with or simply love for no particular reason. For me the personal favorite is “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes. I don’t really get what it means but somehow I am sure it was written for me:

Twenty five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill or hope for a
destination
And I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made of this brotherhood of
men….

 

By Susan Kahumbura