SUNSET COMES FOR PRINCESS JULLY.

At the peak of the Afrisa and OKJ rivalry in the mid-1970s, Tabuley made an experiment which gave his outfit an edge over Franco's band. He introduced a lady singer known as Marie Claire Mboyo, aka Mbilia Bell. She was a great composer, singer and dancer. She was also gorgeous, curvaceous and voluptuous. Paired with Tabuely a great showman on stage, she became an instant hit and the band's fortunes picked with shows getting packed. There seems to be magic in showbiz ladies that plays a magnet to keep me glued. 

Princess July, the benga song bird who died in a Migori hospital yesterday also resuscitated the dwindling fortunes of her husband the late Princess July, when she joined him as a backup singer in Kayole Nairobi in the early 1990s. Her husband Princess Jully aka Julius Okumu, great guitarist, was a refined benga musician whose outfit Jolly Boys had grown to become a big name in benga circles, but it took the magic wand of princess Jully to bring back fans into his shows and this also brought more fame and money. 

Princess July, born Lilian Auma in Ndhiwa, Homabay County, underwent a difficult childhood, in her family that also had eight  other siblings. She had to attend school erratically, to attend to menial chores to aid her help her peasant single mother subsist, as her father had died while she was at infancy. Lilian who had learnt music from her grandmother, was love struck when she met renowned musician Princess Jully who was equally attracted by her beauty and love blossomed culminating into a marriage. 

The village girl who had dropped out of school had to relocate to Kayole a city slum, where he put up with his musician husband. To substitute his husband's income she vended ground nuts in the neighborhood and also took up doing backup vocals to her husband, oftentimes accompanying him for concerts.

She became an instant hit and band's fortunes grew tenfold to an extent that it got two lucrative contracts in city clubs. Being a darling if the crowds, Princess July had a difficult time wading off male singers, some who couldn't stop making sexual advances towards her. 

Her husband, unfortunately died in 1997 after a shirt illness, leaving the leadership of the Jolly Boys Band in her hands. She made remarkable achievements in music, recording several albums, most which became instant hits with fans.

Dunia Mbaya which came at the peak of the AIDS pandemic advocated abstinence as the sole means of mitigating the scourge which was then wreaking havoc and threatening to wipe out an entire generation. The song became very popular across the country as it was used as the theme song for the many anti-AIDS crusades.

Princess Jully, a Legio Maria adherent, has been battling ill health for a couple of years. She succumbed in a Migori hospital on 12th October where she had been undoing treatment. She leaves behind several children and a rich music legacy.

Jarome Ogola

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