Nairobi’s Icons of 2014
Here is a statistic most of you are sure to have heard being bandied about - Kenya’s middle class is one of the fastest growing in Africa. While this is exciting economists and national planning experts no end, the common man on the street is also detecting this change, albeit using different sensors. This is where we come in. Our December issue featured the results of our Best Of Nairobi survey, many of which were for the most part expected, although there were some curve-balls in there.
Where a short fifteen years ago, talk of a poll to determine Nairobi’s best tweeters and instagrammers would have had you admitted into a sanatorium pronto, this was an excellent litmus test for where we are culturally as a city. These are the town criers, the messengers running from valley to valley. They were the ones who came back from far off places to bring the latest in technology, fashion and current affairs. They are, in a nutshell, the trend identifiers and setters. They are, simultaneously, the beating heart of society and the throbbing pulse of the city.
What more accurate way, then, to find out what the people are talking about and why they are talking about it than to ask them who they think are the most influential, current, and well liked of their modern day bards and town-criers. Which we did, with CrazyNairobian taking the honours for best Tweeter, Lafrohemien scooping the best Instagrammer gong, XFM’s Nick Ndeda being voted as the best radio personality and Caine Prize winner Okwiri Oduor running away with best author. What does this say about us?
These are all young men and women, hard working professionals with a single minded determination and ambition. They represent the freedom and opportunity that has come to typify the burgeoning young professional class that is exploding onto the public consciousness at the moment; they embrace a certain irreverence that is true of all of us.
There is a distinct pride, in our identity as Nairobians - CrazyNairobian is a #KOT heavyweight, with his humorous take on current events and essential comic relief. Instagrammer Lafrohemien, with her exquisite eye for fashion and style, is proof that we are beginning to embrace our own creativity, to define our style. This theme of self determination, as it were, continues with the authors you chose as the best of Nairobi. Okwiri Oduor, Abigail Arunga and Kevin Mwachiro exploded onto the scene in 2014, none more so than Okwiri. She won the 2014 Caine Prize for her short story My Father’s Head and the eager wait for her debut novel is almost palpable. It is no surprise, therefore, that she was also voted Nairobi’s best author. As with the other finalists, she made her mark by stepping away from the expected norms that have weighed down Kenyan writers before them. There is vibrancy in their work and their enthusiasm for it. The results of this survey are clear indicators that this is a city on the rise, not just economically, but culturally as well.
