I’ve been thinking Nonini should change his name from Nonini the godfather to something like Nonini the hardest working artists in Kenya. Real talk whenever I think about an artists who has dedicated his entire career to his music through all the several promotion channels available I definitely think Nonini is on my number one list. Lets put it this way, if I was to email Nonini tonight I would be guaranteed he would respond by the A.M.
Many people have argued that he is probably just a better business man than he is an artist, to which I often argue that being a businessman and understanding your brand and your business are a rare trait to have in one individual. To me Nonini has sorta like the 360 (talent, business sense, and more importantly character). The reality that many local artists dont have emails or dont think about the internet as an important tool in their careers is just an indicator of how far we have to go as an industry.
Lets consider this track off Nonini’s old album that somehow got patched up and one of Nonini’s boys just let the camera express what his daughter was going through. To watch this kid sing/rap most of this song trully put a soft spot in my heart. It proved to me that our music is penetrating some phenomenal barriers, it also proved to me that probably now more than ever we are going to have to take responsibility of our music and our lyrical content. I call it social responsibility coz over time if I personally realize that my daughter is bumping and grinding to some illicit content I will probably lose it… lol (considering she recites all the lyrics to Rihannas songs, I think I have already lost the cause).
Either way this video is probably the highlight of my week.
listen to Hii Barua here:
[audio:http://files.getmziki.com/Nonini_ft_Karma-Hii_Barua.mp3]download the track here:
watch the video here:
