OCHIENG KABASELE

On the night of October 20th, 1984, at around 2 am, there was a violent knock on Kabasele’s door in his Kariobangi South home. Kabasele rushed to open the door when the knocking became persistent. Immediately as the door flew open, a dozen heavily armed men swung in and identified themselves as police. Everyone was woken up by the commotion. Joan, Kabasele’s wife, inquired from them who they were and what their mission was, but they didn’t respond. Instead, they clustered themselves into groups and took different directions; some to the bedroom, some remained in the sitting room, and some went to the children’s room and kitchen. When Kabasele’s wife pestered them more on what their mission was, they responded that they weren’t bad people.

Nobody understood what was happening. They seemed to be on a mission to find something specific, mostly a document or some kind of written literature. They literally turned the house upside down, rummaging everywhere while they kept their silence. In the days when Moi cracked down on dissidents, real or imagined, their first mission had always been to sniff around for any form of writing that advanced revolutionary ideology, and more specifically, Mwakenya pamphlets.

The search went on for at least three hours until sunlight began creeping in. That’s when they stopped, in response to an order from their commander. All along, they kept quiet and didn’t respond to any more questions on who exactly they were, from which police station, or what their mission was, even if they were indeed policemen.

This is an excerpt from a yet-to-be-published biography of musician Ochieng Kabasele by this author. Kabasele was subsequently held incommunicado for close to a month before being produced at Mlimani Courts, charged with sedition, and sentenced to serve a five-year jail term. He is just one of the country's long list of musicians who found themselves at loggerheads with a paranoid, dictatorial regime. Others like Kamaru are said to have been flogged by Kenyatta himself at his Gatundu home on suspicion that he was using music to push the opposition agenda.

Ochieng Kabasele was a towering figure in Kenyan music for three decades, having begun his career in 1968 while still a high school student at Pumwani Secondary School in Nairobi. His talent was discovered by Daudi Kabaka, who heard him sing with a group of other young boys in Makongeni Estate in Nairobi, Eastlands—a known fertile breeding ground for talent. Kabaka, by then a musician with Equator Sounds, identified Kabasele among the boys and took him to Equator Records for auditions. This resulted in the recording and release of his very first three singles: Lek, GK, and Naphtaly.

Whereas GK was a song for his lover who was to later become his wife, Naphtaly was a chide to a friend who had previously expressed skepticism that Kabasele wasn't going to make it as a musician. Kabaka himself played a solo guitar in all the songs, as did other Equator musicians like Gabriel Omolo, who played bass guitar.

That was the same year that Kabasele created his band, Lunna Kidi. The band, whose name is derived from the acronym for "Lengre Uru Ni Nyithind Africa"—a Luo expression for "pave way for the sons of Africa"—became one of the country's most popular bands for three decades, releasing over 500 songs, a discography that has been compiled by this author.

Armed with guitar skills, playing both solo and rhythm, and with a unique singing voice—a shaking baritone almost similar to that of Kwamy—young Kabasele was destined to go places. He was equally an excellent songwriter. Music commentator Steve Ogongo once quipped that Kabasele was the most intelligent musician he had encountered.

Some of the band's most popular songs include Achi Maria, Zainabu, Wuora Ogola Adoyo, Millicento, and Princess Lako, among others. Achi Maria was a song for a lady by the name of Lilian Achieng, who happened to have been the same person extolled in the song Princess Lako; while Zainabu, a supposed love song to a woman by that name, was actually fictitious and just a clever way to decry the infrastructural underdevelopment of his native Siaya region in a figurative way. In the song, he narrates how difficult it is for him to reach Zainabu in her home in Ugenya. Millicento is a lovely song, while Wuora Ogola Adoyo was a tribute to his late father, whom he reconciled with later in life as an adult.

Kabasele also served in the military. One morning in 1977, Kabasele, by then already an established musician, passed by the home of his friend George Otieno Maninga in Ziwani and asked if he wished to join the military. The military was then fishing for musical talent around the country to supply its many musical outfits: Maroon Commandos of Langata Barracks 7KR, Scarlet Band of 3KR Lanet-Nakuru, Yellow Waggoners of the Kahawa-based transport battalion, Blue Waggoners of the Gilgil-based infantry battalion 5KR, Green Fire of the Nanyuki-based 1KR, and O-Rangers of the Eldoret-based 9KR, among others.

Alongside George Otieno, Kabasele was enlisted into the military and underwent the six-month mandatory drill at Lanet in Nakuru, which was also the unit they were posted to serve in as infantrymen. Music being his first love, alongside George Otieno and others, they were tasked with creating the Scarlet Band for the first time. However, the army was the wrong place for Kabasele. Being outspoken and outgoing, he found it difficult to cope with the military routines.

It also happened that Kabasele was fully married to music. This was a man who performed in clubs for entire weekends, practiced in the days, and also had studio assignments. He was also a keen observer and, at times, a participant in the political developments of the day. The military was evidently not going to be his cup of tea. Waking up to polish shoes, go for a parade march, receive instructions, eat beef, and drink cheap tax-free beer, among other routine chores in the barracks, turned out to be a hard nut for a street-hardened young adult who had taught himself music and attained some degree of fame.

He quit after three years and embarked on his band, Lunna Kidi. It is also worth noting that since he was expected not to engage musically with his own Lunna Kidi as a soldier, as all his efforts were supposed to be under the military, Kabasele had to become creative and established a band known as Mazadijo, under which he released several songs.

His musical engagements went beyond Lunna Kidi to other bands. In some two albums, Njugu Karanga and one other, he was backed by the entire Super Mazembe band, with Bukasa Wa Bukasa on solo, in a development that Babu Kabasele, son to this icon, said was meant to break monotony. He also had similar arrangements with Zaiken of Madjo Maduley and Vundumuna of Frantal Tabu, which resulted in the song Millicento. Kabasele also recorded with Orchestra Kericho Jazz when he was employed at Chandarana of Kericho.

In his entire career, Kabasele played a unique blend of benga—basically a fusion of rumba and benga—and played with some of the best talents under his band, Lunna Kidi. These included lethal soloist Anzino Osumdwa, who did that magical solo intro of Achi Maria; Owacho Willy, the rhythm wizard; Okello Jose, who played with Juma Toto and Samba; John Nzenze, who played the solo in the hit song Zainabu; Onyango Raringo, who played in the Oyundi album; and Adam Solomon, among others.

Worth noting is that Kabasele was also the patriarch of the Bana Kadori band. They were Kabasele and four of his half-brothers, popularly known as Bana Kadori—a loose translation of the children of K’Adori, "Dori" here being a shortened name of their matriarch, Doris. Kabasele was the eldest and the founder of Lunna Kidi. Kabasele was the most successful, musically, of the Kadori quintet. The quintet comprises Kabasele himself, Boaz Ogoli, Onyango Kadori, Omondi Kadori, and Odindo Kadori.

Kabasele died in a Nairobi West Hospital of health complications he picked up in prison and was buried in his home in Kiplombe, Eldoret. His two sons, Regi Kabasele and Babu Kabasele, are both musicians.

By Jerome Ogola