Griots battle over village girl

In mid 2002 July we hit a studio in California part of Eastleigh with Mwafrika and Menerex to record a track over a beat done by my boy from Malmo, Sweden, Abel The Hun. Scratch records was run by a producer popularly known as -Roba. The vocals were recorded here and played on Capital fm & and YFM as 'ICU freestyle'. However not on the beat it was intended for. Its here where we met this jovial Canadian Dj, DJ Fisher who was at this studio with his peeps as well.

When building with Dj Fisher,we found out he appreciated a variety of musical genres. What intrigued us most is when he told us of his interview with Mr.Lif formely a Def Jukie back in Toronto at his concert. Fish mentioned that Mr.Lif said - 'Alot of white kids usually come up to me with their tapes but mostly they are all wack'. It is this reference that got me more curious to know this cat. Here was a white kid talking about wack white kids. As young and eager Mcs trying to break through a pop ridden industry, we never wanted to hear such words from an older god such as Lif if ever, he were to listen to our tapes in future.

A series of events leading to the making of 'Jerusa' ;Three hangout sessions at Hall 10 at the university of Nairobi where Mwafrika and Menerex resided; Coupled with recording stints at Dj Fischer's apartment in Hurlingham; in addition to open mic perfomances at Sikiliza - village market . Dj Fisher suggested we hit the road. To record a video in Kisumu .

It was a rough time. I had lost my job, Mwaf and Menerex were struggling to get by and clear their college degrees. Dj Fischer in these trying moments popped up the idea . Honestly i thought he was not serious about life. At a time like this? who would think of going to record a video? Fischer had a way with positive energy and guess what? i packed my stuff, left a house i didn't know I'd get kicked out of,and proceeded to go shoot a video in Ugunja. With extremely limited resources, we pulled through.

Mwafrika and i had been working on a concept of doing a track about a village gal called 'Jerusa'.We would battle it out for her with our rhymes. Menerex would be the village elder to bring peace between the two rivaling griots. The Video was shot using a Canon GL1 and of course Dj Fischer's Suzuki - jeep fondly referred to as 'Fifi'. Before the shoot began Mwafrika was arrested by two Kenyan policemen because he was wearing military pants. A priceless sight always to cherish, you should have seen the rage on his face. We bailed him out after and bought him Chinese made pants from a local second hand clothes vendor.