In a previous article, we highlighted to you some of the aspects that makes Kameme FM's breakfast show (Arahuka) comedian Mzee Kiengei stands out from among his fellow Kikuyu radio rib-crackers.
Mzee Kiengei's creativity and naturality are among the things that make him distinguishable from the other birds of his feather which has made him a successful comedian.
However, this is not all about the Koibatek-Eldama Ravine-born Kikuyu comedian because so much remains unknown and untold about Mzee Kiengei especially before the name, fame and money.
Nonetheless, we can now unveil the other widely unknown side of Kiengei before he shot to fame to become a household name in many Kikuyu homesteads.
According to one Danson Kibaara Kabutu who has known Kiengei since their childhood days, the comedian dropped out in Form Three from Githioro Secondary School, three years after he graduated from Maji-Mazuri Forest Primary School in Koibatek, Baringo County.
"His father Kamau Watoria who used to work together with my dad at Timsales got very angry with Kiengei after his efforts to push him to at least complete high school fell on deaf ears. Kiengei's mind was so much engraved in drama and comedy which by then was basically perceived as a child's play," Kibaara told Hivisasa on Monday during an exclusive interview.
Kibaara who is a little-known Kikuyu gospel artiste but a renowned guitarist adds that Kiengei after dropping out from high school would toss himself in reckless alcoholism taking all manner of illicit brews after his field of interest proved a steep and slippery climb.
The guitarist notes that Kiengei would even be branded in his home area as 'the village drunk'. Nevertheless, Kiengei's dying embers in comedy would be reignited after he got saved at Maji-Mazuri open-air market during a crusade organised by Maji-Mazuri Deliverance Church.
It is after this Kiengei's change of behaviour that he would become great friends with Kabaara who was then a born again faithful and dramatist of Maji-Mazuri Deliverance Church drama club.
"It was in 2006 and I remember Kiengei coming to my house where he found me readying myself to go and perform at Maji-Mazuri Forest Primary School.
"He requested me to allow him to accompany me to the school's closing day event where I was to perform. After the performance, we were paid Sh1,600 and Kiengei was so impressed that he told me that he had finally found his type and mentor," Kabaara recalls.
Shortly thereafter during the same year, Kameme FM would announce a Kikuyu comedy talent search auditions across all the areas it covered then.
The nearest place Kiengei would go for the much-hyped auditions, Kabaara says, was Nakuru Town.
"He came and told me that he did not have the fare to travel to Nakuru town. I gave him Sh400 and encouraged him to go and try his luck. And as fate would have it, my friend's lucky star had finally dawned on him. He was successful and Kameme FM hired him. That was the last time I heard from him," Kabaara who was displaced from his farm during the 2007 post-election mayhem recalls painfully.
Kabaara adds that all his efforts to reach out to Kiengei to at least offer him some little assistance in his struggling musical career have all proven futile as all his calls to the radio comedian go unanswered.
The guitarist is, however, quick to note that when he offered a helping hand to Kiengei during his rainy days, he wasn't doing it expecting anything in return in future but now that "my life has taken a downward trajectory mainly as a result of the major disruptions I suffered from the 2007 post-election violence, I would be grateful if my dear old friend Mzee Kiengei helped me out of my current bad situation".
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