CAPITAL FM WITHOUT CHRIS KIRUBI…

Capital Fm without Chris Kirubi feels different, slaps some typa way. It took me a while but eventually during a recent Friday flight, one of the longest serving DJ segments on any show by DJ Adrian, I finally put a scratch….er I mean a finger to it (haha)

Unless you live under a rock, by now you know Chris Kirubi aka DJ CK, aka Chairman aka The Industrialist passed away after battling cancer for quite some time. I can’t say I was saddened because I did not like the shrivelled Images of the bubbly Chairman. If death meant rest or a break from pain then so be it.  Are you already wondering where the Chairman and I intersect? Or better yet, who am I to talk about him? Well unlike every article that I read eulogizing the fallen Industrialist, they were all up close and personal, you know… “Once we were in a meeting  and he said this or that, or..he gave me my first break…” kind. I unfortunately do not  have the luxury of any of that. Mine is purely a fan’s perspective or as Eminem calls them stans. 

The year is 2000, Kiss 100 the radio station, slowly but surely colonizing the Kenyan Airwaves by playing the latest pop songs, R&b and even the latest banging Kenyan tunes. An interesting time as Kenyan Music was busy swatting off Congolese music which was all over Covid 19 style. The year 2002 saw me complete my KCPE, performed pretty well by village standards, 385/500 saw me come fourth in my class, 400 and above would have been ideal but well, we get what we get. It was during the wait period that I got over Kiss 100 and Nation Fm which later rebranded to Easy, no Idea what it goes by now. Even at such an age, I had such a broad musical palette. Before Kiss 100 busting on the scene I would dabble with Metro Fm, KBC English service, those were about the only woke stations with a country wide wingspan. It was tiresome honestly.

So one day, perched at the most vantage point in Mr. Chirande’s homestead, fidgeting with the frequency knob as usual, I could hear the song Numb by Linkin Park albeit through a lot of static. I was hooked! Line and sinker. It was my first time listening to Rock music, very different from my usual, mostly stale playlists my regular frequencies were serving me. I didn’t even know the name of the song nor the rock band at the moment. Cell Phones were just catching on and the internet on a mobile device was still a futuristic concept. I mean, I grew with the generation that got lyrics from newspapers. 

Stay with me, I promise I have a point to these rumbling……..

Here is a radio station that I wasn’t sure if the presenters were Kenyan, everything was sleek and cool, even the advertisements were actually palatable! The energies between the different shows was very very different, it actually felt like traversing different parts of the world from morning to the late night shows, Fareed Kimani was outlandish and overt in the morning, the ladies were exotic during the Fuse, in the afternoon it was masculine and a whole other mood with the boys on the Jam. Hits not homework would literally give me goosebumps. I still follow and crush on Eve D’souza to date. I had never seen her but I knew she was pretty from the way she sounded. The different takes on social commentary between her and her co-host Solo were just golden for me. You would find me arched precariously trying to get the right angle for the frequency 98.4.

Nini Wacera would calm me down with the most soothing blues on radio with a bewitchingly sensual voice, I truly wonder where she went to. This program between 1.00 Am and 5.00 Am, can’t remember its name, the Urbanites or something. The reason I know about this very late night show is because I would sleep with my radio on. Occasionally the barking of a mongrel would wake me up to find the gentlemen who used to steward the show giving shout outs to folks tuned in live via the internet in Atlanta, Brooklyn and a host of other foreign places. 

The closest interaction I had had with the Internet was when I joined Chavakali and through an initiative by Nepad (New Partnership for Africa’s Development). Something our principal made us know in so many words wasn’t an easy feat to pull off and yet there were humans across the globe with the luxury of streaming radio hahaha! I had to know who the owner of this flashy radio station was.

I would regularly hear the ladies on the Fuse mention DJ CK during the Fuse Fusion and it never hit me who that was. Took me longer than I would like to admit. Would you like to guess what was the first thing I did when I got myself in a cybercafe on my second visit to Nairobi? I simply had to try the listen live feature on their website, I can still remember the look on the cyber attendants face haha! Such a brazen Luhya this one.

A lot has been said about Chris Kirubi, A loot! Some quite unsavoury, we will not dwell on those. 

If you’ve been following my journey even in the least bit, you will understand why someone like me would be drawn to a personality like CK’s. I do not come from as far down the drain as he had to come from. Maybe that’s the jet fuel he needed to keep going even in the most arduous of moments. However, I can boldly draw some parallels and if that’s too much then let us settle on inspiration then.

I am a sucker for rags to riches stories, double sucker for self made men/women, I find bold risk takers enchanting, it shouldn’t be a surprise my son is called Elon, you know, like Elon Musk (the Electric cars – Tesla – guy, if you just resurrected). On the very lonely journey I decided to pursue, very few folks I could look up to aspirationally. My local shopkeeper who managed to grow into a minimart was too achievable. I longed for mass impact at a very young age. Took me a long time to bloom because of my environment and circumstances, but we are who we are no matter where we go.

Back to Chris, the closest I came to interacting with the flamboyant business mogul was one time he came to grace Kenyatta Universitie’s culture week as one of the keynote speakers.

Chase cars, flags on his limo and body guards. I was left wondering what exactly this dude did for a living damnit! I think he was still serving as Ghana’s Honorary Consul to Kenya then. I don’t remember  much of his speech but something I caught remained with me to date. I would like to bet that every one of you has used a product from my company(s) at least once or twice. He went on to tell us how he owned Haco industries and would like to bet a very good percentage of the republic gets high on his sh*t hehehe of course not in those exact words.

I dwelled on Capital Fm because it grew me, it taught me at a very early age that there is a lot more out there in the world beyond my tiny village.The  extreme variety in its programming and production of its shows to date is a practical lesson to life itself on how diverse it is. Many a time, when players do so well on a football pitch the coach is sometimes forgotten in the ululations that ensue, forgetting some of the tactical calls he had to make. While I would like to sing songs about this radio station, the true focus of my blogpost is the person who created this media company for what it is today.

Let’s put aside the miasma of subterfuge that hangs over CK’s illustrious accomplishments, it would be very hard not to credit him with hard work and astuteness. Look, unless we just met (via this story) by now you know I live and breath creating something that outlives you. This man against all odds did it. It is not easy, believe me. I work on my personal brand and business everyday, delay gratification and boy is this sh*t hard. You need all the skills, resources and luck in the world.

Oh, by the way, Capital Fm is fine and will be for a very long time despite DJ CK signing off. I  had to find a way to start this post 🙂