In his essay, ‘The Decay or Lying’, famous Irish author, poet, and playwright Oscar Wilde explores the idea that “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life,” suggesting that art shapes how we perceive and experience life, rather than simply reflecting it.
Think of King Von.
The highly influential Chicago street rapper was a dangerous man, a gang-affiliated jailbird suspected to have murdered tens of people.
He was eventually dubbed as “Rap’s first serial killer” after his death when more details of his gangster life came out.
While it seems like he was just rapping, an analysis of his pen has revealed that he was actually passing messages on his songs, including warning his opponents of what awaited them.
He lived what he rapped about, whether it was showing off for murders, or predicting his future, an eventual death in the hands of other gangs.
On his song When I Die, he raps, “Don’t let them goofies touch my casket when I die, And when you leave my funeral, you better slide,” acknowledging that the life he lived was always going to lead him into an early grave.
He was killed in a street shootout.
Kantai’s Issues
Chris Kantai starts one of his most self-conscious rap songs, Issues, with “What’s life really?” and then goes on to lament how precarious life is.
He acknowledged that he is going through it, rapping, “I’m still in the gutter, maybe not in the ghetto, but I’m not doing better than the next man see?”
At the time, it could just be a piece of art as to what people go through, except it was a revelation into what the rapper, who loved his Superman t-shirts, would forever be synonymous with, substance abuse.
A talented rapper who had just landed from the Unted States, he could effortlessly sing in English, Swahili and sheng, Kantedda was the real deal, a fresh voice that wowed fans and hooked hot babes like Stella Mwangi and Brenda.
But beneath all that bravado, and an impeccable catalogue that included ‘Jinga Hii,’ ‘Huu Ni Nani G,’ ‘Lifestyle,’ ‘Nare,’ ‘What Mo,’ ‘Happy,’ and a collaboration where he scorched both Abbas and Chiwawa in ‘Maringo,’ it was on ‘Issues’ that he openly talked about what he was to wallow in, alcoholism.
“K-A-N-T-A-I why lie, I got issues that can’t be erased by a tissue,” the hook went on, in between lamentations, and a peek into what he was going through.
“They say lovely day but I am a man of the night,” before going in and, “Sometimes I get stressed and drink a lot of booze, when I look forward for hangovers I love them too/ I drink for the pain, not really to get rid of it, but to pressurize and hurt my veins.”
By the time Khaligraph Jones featured him on ‘Ting badi Malo’ in 2017, he was away from showbiz, another talent lost to the realities of life.
Pictures of him in seedy keg joints surfaced, before Pulse caught up with him intoxicated and lying on the roadside in South B. He had previously lived and patronized bars in Matasia, Ngong.
Previously before they hit a studio, the OG had posted, “Chris Kantai is one person that I will forever respect and acknowledge cause he did set the pace for a lot of artistes that are in the present music industry. Let’s all appreciate this pioneer for the good job he has done and is still doing.”
In February 2019, at 42, Kantai, who ironically had a song called ‘Kewowo,’ an ode to liquor, passed on at St. Francis Hospital in Kasarani, Nairobi, after being admitted with breathing complications.
On Issues, he finishes off with an explanation, saying, “It’s so easy for you all to come and say, ‘hey Kantai, you know, this is what you need to do, what you are supposed to do,’ you don’t even know where I come from…”
Sue na Jonnie’s drama
The award-winning show was built to portray a house of cards – a man who got a job meant for someone else with the same name, who then hires a girlfriend. All fake.
That both the lead actors, Martin ‘Daddy Marto’ Githinji and Catherine ‘Selina/Kate Actress’ Kamau won the 2017 Kalasha Awards for Best Actor and Actress in a TV Drama was the art of Kenyan comedy at its peak.
But with what happened after, the art mirrored what life would become. Both Martin and Cate walked away from marriages, the former the most recent to. He has been accused of being violent, a serial cheat and manipulative by his ex-wife, Koku Lwanga.
In just under two months, the two have laid bare the struggles in their 10-year marriage, a back-and-forth spat that is not going anywhere anytime soon. It’s not fake.
“You even started kicking me and that is when it dawned on me you were another woman’s man,” she claimed recently on a particular night when everything became physical. She was responding to Daddy Marto’s long-winded explanation of the drama that started in mid-June.
Just like on ‘Sue na Jonnie,’ the façade starts to slip, and little secrets come out.
Catherine walked away from her marriage in 2023, choosing to release a joint statement with her ex-husband Phil Karanja, ironically, the producer of ‘Sue na Jonnie’.
“We came to a conclusion to end our marriage a long while ago and separated,” the joint statement read, with a request, “We sincerely request everyone to honour our wishes for privacy for us and our children.”
While Showmax tabs Sue na Jonnie to be a 13-seasons drama, Phil and Catherine’s marriage lasted for five years.
Omosh’s dance with the drink
Ever conniving, constantly plotting and regularly funny, Omosh Kizangila was the reason most stayed glued to the high school drama, ‘Tahidi High’. With no pun intended, Omosh was a character, a subordinate stuff who was many things, among them, the plus for the many illegal items the students needed. Not once was he found asleep in the school’s grounds after coming to work drunk.
Unbeknownst to many, Joseph Kinuthia was a struggling alcoholic, a man who confessed to ‘drinking 10 beers on a daily basis without feeling the effect,” by the time he was gracing our screen.
Beers graduated to chang’aa and other illicit liquor, and by the time Tahidi High was long gone, he had been reduced to making a regular appearance in photos and videos where he was captured either dead drunk, or in between alcohol joints.
And like the conniving character he was on the show, not once has he drunk monies contributed by generous Kenyans to remove him from one debt hole or another.
Well, Kinuthia, not Omosh, has quit alcohol and become a pastor, if recent claims are to be believed. He’s in the process of becoming a reverend. And it’s not a character.
Inspector Mwala behind bars
He is Inspector Mwala because he is a stickler for the law. His show, where he led a group of cops in solving everyday crimes with the wisdom of Solomon and the experience of a nanny ran for years on TV, a popular show on Citizen’s roster.
But in 2019, the actor, known as Davis Mwabili, was involved in a fatal crash in Kaloleni, Kilifi, which led to pedestrian dying. It became a case of the hunter becoming the hunted as an irate crowd tried to attack Mwala, real police came to his rescue by firing into the air.
They then arrested and locked him in Rabai police station for interrogation. He was later sentenced to a year in jail with the option of a Sh30,000 fine.