The Making of a Roadway Reggae Fan
Even as a music enthusiast (or so I deem myself), Matatus with booming music have never been my portion. In my third year of school, Mombasa Road did me some, NO, much good — And it has nothing to do with the good Muslim lady whose sweets helped me munch the traffic away. To date, I remember her cologne and graceful act. Oh well, and the good vibes. Never in a zillion years will the boy you sit next to a stranger your age and willfully and gladly engage on her ice breaker and sweets. There’s something about sweets from strangers that make them so condescendingly sinfully sweet. It’s everyone’s childhood equivalent of weed, so illegal with the moms they could easily land you a house arrest.
Rembo and Karuri almost never played music, except when it was time to have their drivers given a shout-out by Maina Kageni on Classic 105. This is something I noted with some bus companies along Waiyaki Way back in 2012 as well. Passengers would listen to Maina romanticize Jose Chameleon, or Diamond, or Nyashinski, or Bryan Adams, or Michael Jackson, or Celine. He’d occasionally break the music flow with some light yet engaging life banters that would leave everyone inside in stitches. Well, I still listen to Maina’s shenanigans today, by the way. If not for his great taste of old school music, then his ‘silly’ engagements and music commentaries. You should hear him romanticize Otile and Meddy’s Dusuma like he is bribed.
Maina’s music was never too loud. One could easily sleep their way to town in his musical patronage. The touts were friendly as well, and passengers minded their own business. I’d catch up on a book once in a while, and believe you me, I’d enjoy my reads. My Matatu history in this city has been defined by avoiding the club music boomers every time school comes calling, or when I’m running errands in town, or when I’m linking up with a friend. But yesterday, I had no choice. I was late, in town, and headed to a place I only knew in my dreams. And just so you know, the new normal has struck city travel a great deal. Passengers literally line up to catch a bus home — and it may take you ages to have your legs relieved. Knowing everything at stake, I slid into the next bus, got my phone out, and started scrolling through the pages of Poems from Africa, a book I realized has been part of my e-collection for months now.
Music started playing immediately we took off. Pissed, I closed the app, slid my phone back into the pocket, and stared out through the window. ‘Demakufu, Supremacy Sounds…’ the disk jockey interpolated the boom or music as you’d want me to call it. The guy next to me nodded in thrill. He seemed deeply immersed in the DJ’s reggae roots repertoire. They played Sophia George’s Girly girly, Dube’s Remember me, Shasha Marley’s Gospel of Jah, and a host of other old school reggae tunes novices like myself understand, or rather know, and I loved it! Kevoh had introduced me to reggae in 2017, and I thought it’d do me some good doing this for him — it’s been years since I last saw him, you know. I felt like giving him a call but shoved the idea and resorted to well, listen, for him.
Burning Spear’s identity put my thoughts into perspective, and I marveled at what a great tune that was. Kevoh had been specific about Burning Spear. The 90s must have been such a godsend for the reggae fans, I thought. I kept looking forward to identifying the few other songs I knew from the mix. Captain TT’s Forgive I melted my heart. Freddie McGregor’s If You Wanna Go, resonated with something I had been going through the past few weeks, and I thought it tapped deep from within the auricles of my heart and indeed, the faculties of my brain. I swam in the boom, and for the first time, fished out my phone and wrote a line from a song I couldn’t identify but thought was really cool. The music, I have to admit, had me lost in a world of fantasies, thrill, and nostalgia.
As I carried my bag off to the cyclists’ shed for my next portion of the journey, I felt like sending a thank you note the driver’s way. He’d been such a good-bad jockey, jostling my heart into reggae fanaticism. I just hope I do not turn into a shaggy-haired pidgin-slanged fella shouting ‘message’ at every sound and rumor of a reggae tune. I hear they never die, and if they die, they never rot, and if they rot, they never smell, and if they smell, they only smell ganja. You can be sure I want to die, rot and smell anything else but ganja! I’m not becoming one any soon😊. But hey, long live the good old reggae music! Pure class!
