Radio Maisha, a station owned by the Standard Group, has made a significant move by bringing on board Chris The Bass, a top presenter from Milele FM.
Chris is set to join the Radio Maisha breakfast show starting Monday, April 22, 2024. He will co-host the show with Shuga Boy and Zully, who have been driving the morning show for some time now.
Zully took over from Emmanuel Mwashumbe when he departed for Radio 47 a few months ago. At Radio 47, Mwashumbe teamed up with Alex Mwakideu, Chris Da Bass’s former boss, for the morning show.
Chris expressed his excitement about joining Radio Maisha through his social media platforms, promising to reconnect with his fans starting Monday.
“We’re moving forward together … See you tomorrow at 6 AM on @radiomaisha.ke. NO DOUBT!!!!!!” Chris announced.
After five years at Milele FM, Chris bid farewell to the station, acknowledging the amazing journey he had. He thanked his listeners, colleagues, and bosses at Milele FM for their support and encouragement.
“My time at Radio Milele has been truly amazing. THANK YOU so much to you, the listeners, because without you, I wouldn’t be here! THANK YOU to my colleagues and bosses at Radio Milele, especially my brother @mcatricky. We’ve had a blast! THANK YOU, everyone. For now, my chapter at Milele FM has come to an end,” Chris said.
Chris previously co-hosted the evening drive show at Milele FM alongside MCA Tricky.
It’s a tall order trying to make an accurate assessment of Kenya’s entertainment scene without considerable tribute to a phenomenal entity, Felix Odiwuor variously known as Mzee Jalang’o or just plainly, as Jalas.
Well, here’s a seasoned jack to a lot of trades.
Jalango is an established stand-up comedian, event MC, influential radio presenter and an astute businessman running a thriving event-hosting company called Arena Media.
Jalang’o with presenter Alex Mwakideu at Milele FM studio (file image)
This is a shrewd man used to making headlines on entertainment sites, gutter blogs and mainstream media, but keen observation shows a performer aware of the secret to being a darling to the masses – remain relevant.
Until a few weeks ago, Jalas has been hosting an influential morning radio show at Milele FM, alongside popular co-host Alex Mwakideu. He sensationally quit, citing contractual disagreements and has since joined Kiss FM, replacing the iconic controversial presenter Andrew Kibe at the morning show.
It’s easy to get fooled by his trademark green suit and a well-used, leopard-print shirt. Well, this is his mark of trade on stage, and hosting events as an MC – corporate and otherwise.
Beyond that smoke screen is a determined, focused and ambitious man, with a realistic finger-touch feel of the region’s needs in terms of entertainment. And, the guts to gamble and take career risks to reposition himself to take advantage of the trends.
Felix Odiwuor has come a long way – from a roadside comic byline to a regional, influential public personality. It hasn’t been an easy ride.
As always, this success story is inspired by bleak, humble beginnings. The usual tagline starts with a struggling background. He had willing and loving parenting, but life being unapologetically what it is, he faced lots of grounding uphill in early schooling.
Jalang’o, like many other artists of repute, owes a pie to the Kenya National Theater halls, where he moonlighted as a fickle second-cast entry for a whopping three years. He’d join the travelling theatre making play of high school literature set books. Well, lady luck did smile on him.
As wheels of fate inevitably turn, a break happened out of the blues – Papa Shirandula Show on Citizen TV. Alongside colleague and friend, Captain Otoyo (aka Otos), they’d clinch and secure spots on the show that’d endear them to the viewership and catapult the show’s ratings to the top.
Jalang’o has never looked back.
On the current trend with Jalang’o replacing Andrew Kibe at Kiss FM, what many do not know is that Jalas also owes the station a significant piece of his success.
Kiss FM is the station that gave the comedian and presenter the doorway to greatness, ways back. At the time, Jalas was performing on the Papa Shirandula show, and a slot had opened at Kiss FM. Despite impossible odds, Jalas aced the interview without any academic papers – they wanted a ‘degree person’!
Since then, he’s worked with Radio Maisha, then Hot 96 alongside iconic Jeff Koinange before a move to Milele FM for a morning sting with presenter Alex Mwakideu.
The move to the Kiss FM morning show to pair up with outspoken lady presenter Kamene Goro may be Jalang’o’s best career move yet.
He’s come of age – he’s influential, established on the social scene shedding the hustler image to join the polished, perhaps corporate listenership section. It’s time Jalang’o sheds the comic, pea-brained clown persona to embrace a polished, urban, well informed analytic presenter.
Kiss FM commands a large section of the urban radio segment, and this is where the present-day Jalang’o really fits.
Media personality and comedian Felix Odiwuor, popularly know as Jalang’o, has called it a day at Milele FM where he has been hosting the breakfast show with Alex Mwakideu since July 2018.
Taking to Instagram, Jalang’o revealed that he has been having discussions with the powers that be at Mediamax but their talks did not bear any fruit.
“I was not at work today because we had not agreed on a lot of things and terms and even as we speak my HR had me on hold discussing the terms of my employment,” he wrote.
Milele FM co-hosts Jalang’o (left) and Alex Mwakideu (right)
He went on to add that his last day at the media house was Friday, June 19 and went on to thank the people that have supported him during his 2-year stint.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t agree. So just like that I won’t be at work tomorrow or any other day. I want to thank everyone who supported me and every fan who was with us to the point that we became the most popular no 1 radio station in the country,” Jalang’o added.
His announcement comes; barely hours; after it emerged that Mediamax had fired all its newsroom staff and spared only 2.
According to a source, the employees who were shown the door refused to agree to 50% pay cut that that had been proposed by the media house. Interestingly, they even laid off people who had accepted the 50% pay cut.
Milele FM presenters Jalang’o (left) and Alex Mwakideu (right)
As you may or may not know, a few days ago, popular YouTuber and blogger Edgar Obare exposed the philandering ways of Milele FM radio presenter Alex Mwakideu.
Obare, who is known to expose public figures, shared Instagram screenshots that showed Mwakideu arranging for a meet up with his alleged side chic – Irene Barungi – so that they can do the nasty.
Irene Barungi with Alex Mwakideu
In the leaked conversations, the two are seen referring to each other as ‘babe’ before the media personality asks for a teaser of what awaits him.
When the scandal broke out, many people, including myself, expected Mwakideu to come out guns blazing and claim that the conversation is fake while pointing a finger at his detractors but none of that happened.
Instead, he opted to keep quiet and acted like he was not the talk of the town. I know this because I kept checking his social media accounts for a statement. Before we knew it, Kenyans had forgotten about the scandal.
Alex Mwakideu with his wife
There’s a crucial lesson that other people who are in the limelight and Kenyans in general can learn from all this and that is the fact that the more you talk about something is the more it sticks in people’s minds.
Truth is that if Mwakideu had gone the Jalang’o way and issued a statement on his social media accounts, we would still be talking about it to date because, well, he has given us a reason to continue talking about it.
By completely avoiding the story, despite the criticism he got on social media, it died a natural death and that means that it’s up to whoever who saw the screenshots to decide if the presenter was really sleeping with his colleague.
And to be honest, it doesn’t really matter whether they are having an affair or not because they are of legal age and I believe they are not mentally incapacitated.
Jalang’o and Alex Mwakideu went on air together on Milele FM sometimes in August 2018. The two presenters reunited after a year apart.
Mwakideu and Jalas have chemistry on radio having worked together for four long years on Radio Maisha before they ‘broke up’ in 2017, when Jalas joined Hot 96 as Mwakideu remained at Radio Maisha.
The two were poached from Radio Maisha and Hot 96 to once again work together at Milele FM, Jalas and Mwakideu host the morning drive.
Jalang’o and Alex Mwakideu
Promotion
Mwakideu has been appointed Head of Radio Milele FM just four months after joining the station. A colleague Joyce Gituro confirmed the appointment when she sent him a congratulatory message via Instagram.
“Congratulations, Alex Mwakideu Head of Radio and Ngunjiri, Deputy Head of Radio on your new roles. May God guide your every step. Together let’s take Milele FM higher,” wrote Joyce Gituro.
Milele FM has brought in a new radio presenter for its morning drive show Milele Breakfast. After resigning from Mombasa’s Baraka FM in late April, Billy Miya has joined the Nairobi based station.He will be working with Mbaruk Mwalimu and Dj TEN.
The two are expected to turn things over at Milele FM, it can be done, Billy says.
Billy Miya
To get you well acquainted who Billy Miya is, he is the guy who did a story about a man named Kipchumba who shaved his lover’s private parts clean while she was asleep.
The man claimed that actions spoke louder than words and that he decided to shave the lady for hygiene reasons.
The audio aired by Baraka FM went viral and became a topic of discussion across East Africa residents.
Mbaruk Mwalimu was once a presenter with Baraka Fm a while back, hosting The Lane, alongside Lutfiya Bakari.
Billy Miya and his co-host are now tasked to make Milele Breakfast a must tune to,listen and follow show…and in the long run, the biggest radio show in the country.
Some of the most listened to morning radio shows include Classic 105 FM’s Maina and King’ang’i, Hot 96’s Jeff and Jalas, Radio Maisha’s,Maisha Asubuhi with #AlexNaOtos , Radio Jambo’s #GidiNaGhostAsubuhi among others.
