Who Was Rasna Warah?
Ras Mengesha
From writing pithy op-eds to her wide ranging analysis, to her fiction and nonfiction, nothing will shine a light on who Rasna Warah was more than reading her writing.
From writing pithy op-eds to her wide ranging analysis, to her fiction and nonfiction, nothing will shine a light on who Rasna Warah was more than reading her writing.
For a brief moment in 2003, my favourite musician, E-Sir, would come back from the dead. It had been a few months since the news
My mother’s answer leaves me disappointed when I ask her about the musician whose cassettes we listened to every Saturday morning. I want her to say Pastor Faustin Munishi because that is the story I have in my head: my mother, the weekend, chores, laughter, music, Munishi. But she says, blankly, as she goes about her business, Apostle Kyande. Her answer is correct, just not the one I wanted.
It’s the year 2003. We spend all our free time in [Redacted] Boys High School huddled up listening to Kiss 100. Ogopa Deejays have taken
Every origin story has a soundtrack. This is mine. It’s the year 2000. I’ve just sat my KCPE and the whole world is ahead of
Late one July night in 2020, I clicked on a link that someone had shared on Twitter. I do not remember the contents of the
I didn’t buy as many records as I should have until I moved to Colombia. The last record I bought was Reggae Greats: Gregory Isaacs Live at a flea market in Edinburgh. Records in Nairobi were too expensive for a broke, recently graduated writer. By 2020, I had about 22 records found almost accidentally on various trips. And then the pandemic was announced. By the time I was going to Pereira, one year later, I had over 100 records.
Reverence is recognisable. You see it when it is there, and here, as the MC does his best to calm the crowd, to plead for
Writing letters to girls was a common ritual in my school. Unless you were a loser, everybody had those writing pads with pink flowers running around the margin, and perfume specifically picked for spritzing your letters before sending them out.
