REVEALED: How A Top Tanzanian Singer Is Living In Shame,Debts And Drunkenness In Kenya’s Athi River Estate. (Photos)
Mac Muga. A song that was done by Ali Kiba back in 2007 that subliminally took shots at some former superstar who squandered all of his wealth,fame and fortune and crawled back to a life of penury and destitution after many frivolous wild nights with women and booze.
Speculations started immediately. Who was the subject of that song? At whom was Ali Kiba directing his jibes? Who was the subject of the mawkish song that was sang with so much raw emotion and even melancholy?
Quickly,it was decided that the song,which became an East African smash hit,was directed at none other than former high-flying Tanzanian crooner Mr. Nice.
Tales started abounding.
We started hearing of what a sorry mess Mr Nice had become.
We started hearing stories of what a waste of talent the man had become even after he was once the Number One East African star. With crossover hit records including Fagilia,Kidalipo and Kikulacho.
The man who invented the infectious Takeu style of dance was now a ghastly,ghostly figure of his former glorious self.
A broke,drunken wretch living a life of a scrawny street dog.
The Mac Muga song came and went… And for a minute,we forgot the Mr Nice tribulations to focus on other pressing matters like the General Elections,butchering each other over the election results and everything else in between.
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And then in 2013,the cancer that refuses to go resurfaced ; Mr. Nice got signed by Grandpa Records.
It was a beautiful time and the Grandpa fraternity was praised for dragging this scuzzball from his death bed and giving him life again.
But less than three months after he got signed,Grandpa Records dropped the artiste like the proverbial hot potato releasing what remains to be one of the most hard-hitting analysis of any human being ever done by a record label.
Grandpa released this scathing statement to the media,
To Grandpa Records fans and friends we’ve decided to drop Mr nice from Grandpa Records artists’ roster. Mr Nice has been terminated for violating the agreement we entered with him. For the sake of media and the general public we will summarize and say this, Mr Nice is the most difficult, uncooperative, lazy, u
And with that,Grandpa said adios to this terribly unreformable thug.
We blogged about it. Bitched about it and spent our tea breaks and beer gatherings analysing the sudden turn of events.
Again,we moved on from discussing the fellow and he crawled back to his native Tanzania,broke,dejected and dumped.
Flash Forward to mid 2016 :
Around the first of August 2016,which is last month,Mr Nice,who was on Citizen TV the other week to try and wow you with his bogus has-been tales,moved into the Athi River neighborhood in Machakos County,Kenya.
Broke and miserable as usual,the man moved into a little one-bedroom house at an estate called Sunset Boulevard.
The rental house goes for Ksh. 16,000 per month.
TOP: Sunset Boulevard Estate,where Mr Nice lives.
After settling in the estate,it was time for him to reclaim his former glory and find ways to make some coins to pay his house rent and also satiate his insatiable desire to get drunk as hell. Also,to afford food. That is,if he eats at all.
And that’s how he met some Kikuyu guy whose name we wont publish,an events organizer around Athi River who took him (Mr Nice) under his wings and started hustling for local shows around Kitengela for the former Tanzanian superstar.
Soon enough,the promoter,a well known figure around Athi River,started booking Mr Nice for cheap shows around dingy clubs in the Kitengela environs.
Mr Nice started performing in the clubs every weekend… Sometime even on weekdays,settling for some thirty thousand,twenty thousand and even sometimes,as little as ten thousand per show.
But as they say,old habits die hard.
Even after having a house rented for him and having some guy running around trying to book him for local shows around the neighborhood,Mr Nice’s burning desire to hit the bottle never quite left him.
He remained the ill-mannered,uncultured womanizing alcoholic he always was and always will be.
Barely a month after settling down,Mr Nice started hitting local pubs to while his evenings away ordering bottle after bottle after bottle.
On a lazy evening,Mr Nice started hitting some rundown,makuti pub to play pool with the Boda Boda guys for hours. Drinking his whole evening away,laughing and mingling with the barmaids,taking a Boda Boda home after an evening of wastage and wantonness.
“Amekuwa jamaa wa mtaa tu… Jamaa wa kawaida huku… Mimi nimembeba mara mob… Saa ingine hata halipangi Boda Boda… Huwa ameshaakunywa pesa yote… Lakini namfikisha tu nyumbani… “ one Boda Boda operator told Ghafla.
Always the tipple-loving boozer,Mr Nice continued his drunken and whoring ways,eventually befriending some barmaid who used to work at the Blue Bridge pub located in the neighboring Jam City slums.
Everyday,Mr Nice started visiting the Blue Bridge pub not just to drown himself in alcohol but also to see his girl,the barmaid.
The tiny Blue Bridge pub where Mr Mice has been drinking his whole life away with the pub’s barmaid who was then SACKED after she wasted a staggering Ksh. 30,000 worth of drinks stock with Mr Nice.
Things happened fast and within no time,Mr Nice started sleeping with the barmaid day after day,taking her home after she was done selling for the night.
And then,trouble started.
Mr Nice just couldn’t afford to pay for his runaway drunkenness. But he needed to drink so bad.
Therefore,he started visiting the pub every single day. And started drinking FOR FREE.
The barmaid didn’t see into Mr Nice’s cheeky schemes and,blinded by her affection for him,started supplying him with free drinks on a daily basis.
He drank and drank and drank. And never paid for a thing.
And by the time the pub owner discovered what was going on,the barmaid had wasted away stock worth Ksh 30,000 on Mr. Nice.
She was promptly SACKED. And now,the pub runs the risk of closing down.
“Huyu Mr Nice alikuwa anakuja hapa kila siku kulewa na huyo msichana… Wanakunywa Wanakunywa mpaka asubui. Na halipi… Wanakunywa tu… Baadaye, it was discovered hawa watu walikuwa wamekunywa stock ya thirty K. Huyo Dame wa bar alifutwa hapo hapo… “ one of the pub guys who frequents the pub confidently told us.
After the sacking, the barmaid was left jobless and hopeless.
And then she moved into Mr Nice’s house.
“Hata saa hii wanaishi pamoja… Mr Nice na huyo dame… “ a Mr Nice neighbor,who just lives a block away from him,told us.
Even as his tribulations confounded him,Mr Nice’s love for the bottle never quite left him.
“Last week alienda hapa… Kuna pub huitwa Savannah Delta…. Alienda hapo kukunywa. Kumbe jamaa hana hata pesa… Jamaa akakunywa machupa all night. Bill ikafika 1,700. Jamaa anashindwa kulipa,ilibidi ma waiter wachukue phone yake… Hata saa hii sijui kama amerudishiwa phone… “ a source who witnessed the whole embarrassing fiasco confided to Ghafla.
Unable to settle such a little bill,Mr Nice was thoroughly embarrassed after the staff at the Savannah Delta club,in Athi River,confiscated his mobile phone and sent him away. Soaked in shame.
The Athi River club that confiscated Mr Nice’s mobile phone after he was unable to settle a cheap Ksh. 1,700 bill after a long night of drinking.
Other reports paint an even less glossy image of the once high-flying Tanzanian star who,last year,had to be suspiciously admitted at the Kahama Hospital in Shinyanga, Tanzania for two weeks for what he claimed was food poisoning by his political detractors. Many questioned the authenticity of that claim.
SHAME: The luckless singer in hospital with a swollen stomach after suffering from a suspicious food poisoning episode.
Also,back in November 2015,that’s like a year ago,the downcast singer appeared on East Africa Television’s Planet Bongo to address his destructive drinking habits and said these words which startled the entire East Africa,
”That’s why am getting drunk alot! Because I have money. It’s my money! So I drink all the beer that I want because of my money!”
Mr. Nice even bragged that he can drink so much so that he may end up sleeping at the pub. And that he’s perfectly fine with waking up in a dingy pub,drunk and incoherent.
The man’s legendary arrogance remains. And his appetite for drinking -and drowning his little finances down the pub drain- seems to never want to leave him.
Truth is,Mr Nice is as broke as a Class Four girl in the Huruma Slums in a tattered dress. He doesn’t drink HIS money. He has none…He lives off women and barmaids and cheap friends and handouts and favors and kickbacks. And drinks his whole life away…Putting everyone around him in trouble. Even himself.
The entire Athi River community is staring at a disaster waiting to happen. And if no one moves fast enough and saves this man from himself,we will not be having him around long enough to even do stories such as these.
Ali Kiba has been vindicated.
There’s nothing Nice to write home about.
Poor soul.
