In Lagos, you will see them hanging at the malls in Victoria Island, skinny jeans on their legs and iPods in their ears. In Johannesburg, you will spot them at malls like North Gate where they pose next to the skating rink in all their multicoloured denim glory and in Nairobi you will spot them at Junction Mall, some boys with hair shaved like Jason Derulo’s and the girls in high tops and tights cradling their cups from Planet Yogurt or reapplying their shiny strawberry or vanilla flavoured lip gloss. Majority of them have their fingers tapping away on their phones, earphones plugged as they listen to uploaded music.
Meet the Camp Mulla crowd. They listen to artistes like Drake, Wiz Khalifa and Rihanna, they own iPods and Smartphone’s, they have twitter handles, Facebook Likes and are glowing with youthful enthusiasm for all things fresh and swaggeriffic. They can also teach you how to dougie.
At Junction Mall in Nairobi, you will note that they come from all over Nairobi, you will hear swanglish (Anglicised Kiswahili), sheng (urban ghetto slang) as well posh private school accents. Again, you will notice they are all touching their phones or adjusting earphones. Ask them to name their favourite Kenyan groups and the name Camp Mullah will be first from their lips.
Nairobi’s latest rap group Camp Mulla — made up of KCous (Marcus Kibukosya), Young Kas (Benoit Kanema), Taio Tripper (Mathew Wakhungu), Miss Karun (Karun Mungai) and their ‘hype manager’ Mykiee Tichee (Michael Mutooni) — chose a great time to debut.
One factor that has worked in their favour is their enthusiastic embrace of social media. In the past, most Kenyan artists recorded a single or video, dropped it at a radio/TV station and kept their fingers crossed. Camp Mulla, on the other hand, were all over the web even before they announced their arrival with Low, their first single in 2010, which got them immediate radio play — Facebook, Twitter, Reverbnation, Soundcloud, YouTube, in addition to their blog. 19,806 Twitter followers might not sound like much by Kanye West standards, but it's a heck of a lot more than even the most successful Kenyan artists or groups can boast. And in such a short space, too.
Their second advantage was that they all attend or attended private schools. This placed them smack dab in the middle of age-mates with regular access to internet at home or through their phones, and thus spend much more time online than the average Kenyan youth; the same holds true for their fans in other major cities in Africa. “Statistics from social networks indicate that our target age group is between the ages of 17 and 25,” says Mykiee Tichee who says they chose the internet to start with as it was an efficient, effective and free medium.
Their connections haven't hurt, either. Kcous (Marcus Kibukosya) is the son of producer Gideon Kibukosya and Susan Gachukia, who owned the now defunct Samawati studios. Samawati produced one of Nairobi’s seminal urban hip-hop groups, K-South Flava and were behind the first all Kenyan music event ‘Beats of the Season’. Camp Mulla currently record at Sahara studios headed by Suzanne Gachukia.
Much like Nigeria’s Wiz Kid and South Africa’s Kwesta, they couple catchy lyrics with a cocky swagger, a combination highly appealing to their fanbase’s age group: “Th-Think you can handle us” is one of their favourite ad libs and they’ve managed to break through the language barrier that often proved limiting for Kenyan rappers rapping exclusively in English.
“It’s been overwhelming we cannot begin to show our gratitude, God has really pushed us to honour roll heights, say Camp Mulla, whose gigs have multiplied since last years release of their videos Addicted (above) and Party Don’t Stop directed by Nigeria’s Clarence Peters as part of a three video deal.
African communications company M-Tech sponsored the videos, which reportedly cost Sh4million (about $46,000 USD). ”It was a brilliant experience because Clarence Peters is a well-rounded video director and he gave us useful advice and tips on how to work with the camera and that’s why the guys are so confident [in the video],” they say.
Despite the swagger and bravado, they're still pretty young. Thus getting an interview requires prior notice for arrangements to be made for those still in school, and any hint of their ill health on their side leads to a postponed interview. However, this is a small price to pay for the popularity they enjoy with their peers. “There's a lot of kids who look up to them and students are friendlier every day” says Mykee.
As for the future? “We're a family and as a family, its not easy to ''split up'' so wherever we may go in future, we pray that God always puts us together at the right place and at the right time.”
Well, in the near future at least, look out for their debut album FuNkY ToWN set for release this year. No official video yet for Fresh All Day, a bonus track from the album, but stay tuned for that too.
