Thanks to Arbantone, the latest in the scram to become Kenya’s new sound, many of the songs currently ruling the airwaves are heavily sampled from songs that millennial parents danced to “just the other day” when clubs still had dance floors, writes Peter Ndoria
1. TikToker
Released in October 2023, the song by Soundkraft featuring Gody Tennor, Tipsy Gee and Kappy has notched up over 10 million views on YouTube. It talks about love brewed over the social media platform TikTok. The online video sharing service was non-existent 16 years ago when the self-proclaimed King of Genge Jua Cali dropped Bidii Yangu, the song from which TikToker’s beat has been blatantly sampled.
2. Bubbly Bubbly (Na Niki)
This jam by Maandy aka Kabaya dropped on YouTube on the same day as Soundkraft’s club banger and has so far amassed an impressive 4.2 million views. Maandy was probably just some wide-eyed nine-year old when Beenie Man’s Back It Up, from which she has sampled, was released in the compilation series The Biggest Ragga Dancehall Anthems 2007.
3. G-Bag na Jug
This collaboration was released on January 29 this year by Stoopid Boy, Dalo Yoyo and Lyetin, and later remixed as G Baga Jat (by Stoopid Boy, Breeder LW, Spoiler, Mejja, Gody Tennor and Spoiler) on March 19. The song samples Shaggy’s Hey Sexy Lady, which released in November 2002 off his 14-track sixth studio album Lucky Day.
4. Hii Ndo Inabamba
Hii Ndo Inabamba by Gody Tenor, Tipsy Gee, Kappy and Kushman has enjoyed decent airplay, with it feel-good flow borrowed from what was a monster 2007 hit Tatizo. The medley had done the unthinkable by bringing together the who’s-who of showbiz at the time; Pam, who had just won the Coca-Cola Pop Star competition as part of the trio Sema, Karma, Wyre, Abbas, Nameless, Jua Cali and a fresh-faced Nyashinski, way before he left for the US. The song’s production and then top-deck quality had reportedly been sponsored by Motorola, then the leading mobile phone brand in Kenya.
5. Kinare
It’s more than nine years since Jamaican singer and deejay J Capri died from a road accident that cut short the promise by which the Jamaican artiste, who was three weeks shy of her 24th birthday at the time of her death, burst onto the scene. Among her numerous collabos, done in characteristic high-energy fashion, her best-known song was the 2012 earworm she recorded with Charly Black dubbed Whine & Kotch. It is from this explosive beat that Kenya’s Lil Maina samples his Arbantone song Kinare.
6. Kuja Ivo
For a minute there, Sanaipei Tande and Jua Cali seemed to have found the perfect collabo streak with hits such as the evergreen Geti Kali and the timeless classic, Kwaheri, the latter from which Gody Tennor, Sean MMG, YBW Smith and Tipsy Gee have sampled the beat for their club-banger Kuja Ivo.
7. Mapoz
A bit of an outlier, being a Bongo song. In an interview with BBC recently, Tanzanian Bongo Flava artiste Mr Blue confessed how fame and fortune at a tender age had driven him into a life of excess. Over 15 years ago while still a fresh-faced teenager, he had conquered the region with boyish looks and hits such as Mapoz. Three months ago, Diamond Platnumz did his own rendition of Mapoz, featuring Jay Melody and Mr Blue, with the video currently amassing over 13 million views on YouTube.
8. Party Alone
Party Alone is an easy-going hit by Spoiler 4T3 that has been enjoying views for only seven months and is currently riding at over 133,000 hits, with its simple video and free-flowing lyrics. Quite a contrast to Konshens’ ‘wiggly’ hit from 12 years ago Gal A Bubble, whose jaw-dropping video is currently at over 22 million views on YouTube.
9. Pic
There was a time when riddims ruled the airwaves, with the Jamaican subgenre, drawn from patois for the English word rhythm, where a popular rhythm is used in dozens, or even hundreds, of songs reaching global audiences. One of the biggest riddims in 2004 was the Kantana riddim, which spawned hits such as Shaggy’s Reddy Fi Di Ride and Fatima by Voicemail. Kenya’s YBW Smith seemed to have picked it up too two decades later, with his song Pic, which currently has more than 1.6 million views on YouTube.
10. Sikutambui
Wakadinali is one of the biggest musical finds of recent times, with their jam Sikutambui, which has over 7.2 million views on YouTube within just a year of its release. The track was sampled from Full Hundred, which was released in 2000 by Jamaican dancehall artiste Lexxus.
