In different election seasons, Kenyan musicians work with political parties and candidates to push their agenda.
Kenyan musicians have released political music to sway the masses as well as provide entertainment during rallies.
Genge tone artist ExRay during an interview at a local podcast shared details of a deal that allowed use of his famous song ‘sipangwingwi’ that was embraced by Azimio and Kenya Kwanza.
In the original song, ExRay featured two other artists. During the campaigns, they split whereby he performed for Kenya Kwanza as Trio Mio performed for Azimio.
He also featured the DP in the remix of the original song that starred Mario TJ Kasela (Trio Mio) and Sylvia Saru (Ssaru).
“Before UDA approached us the song was being used by both sides. Both sides approached us. Initially, there was some miscommunication on matters dealing with funding.
“We were to perform at the Azimio la Umoja launch and at the same time UDA had approached us. We had to think about how to approach it with Trio Mio's mother to see how we could work with both sides.
“Trio Mio went to Azimio and I went to Kenya Kwanza”, ExRay revealed.
He noted that the outgoing Starehe Member of Parliament Charles Njagua alias Jaguar who approached him to work with Kenya Kwanza camp. He however declined to disclose how much they made from the deal.
On April 8, 2022, the remix dubbed Hatupangwiwngwi that featured the DP was released despite the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) flagging the word as hate speech.
"Jaguar was the only person that we would approach to give us the details on how we could meet up with the Kenya Kwanza team.
We met with the DP on various occasions but the second time that we met is when we discussed doing a remix of the song so that the original is excluded from his campaigns," he noted.
He added that the reason for the remix was to protect himself from losing his fanbase due to political affiliation.
