Ngalah Chome (PhD) – The Rogue Professor With A Mic In One Hand And A Fanisi Experiment In The Other

For Ngalah 2022 was his “Eureka!” year. After years of trying to find his feet with regards to the Hip Hop Kulture and specifically rapping all things began falling into place when he managed to team up with his cousin MastaQuest  to fulfill their long held dream of doing recording a full project which culminated into them giving us The NAKALA album.

That year also came with a double blessing as he teamed up with Buddha Blaze to create Fanisi Arts whose main pillars are artist incubation, music research and performance which is achieved by holding various workshops aimed at training artists about the business of music.

We talked to Ngalah Chome to find out how it all began for him and why he is passionate about the Hip Hop Kulture and how he is planning revolutionize the Hip Hop music industry in Kenya.

Welcome to Micshariki Africa brother Ngalah. I hear they call you The Rogue Professor. Why is that?

I just named my Instagram page “The Rogue Professor” and it apparently caught on, hahaha! I guess it speaks well to the place I am currently in right now, where, after graduating with a PhD in African History, I have decided, in my own little way, to help elevate music, not only as an important cultural resource, but also as a place where important conversations about life, society, and politics can also take place. An academic who has incorporated music as part of his intellectual practice I guess, which is not very common, and might even be deemed as sacrilegious. Hence “The Rogue Professor”. I guess.

Tell me about you and Master Quest are you a crew or individuals who came together to give us an album? What do you guys do and how did you connect and decide to start working together?

MastaQuest is my cousin. His brother was involved in the making of the legendary Kilio Cha Haki album back in 2004. I was rapping at that time. Never really got to record on the Kilio Cha Haki project due to scheduling constraints, but also due to the fact that I was a minor in High School and in faraway Mombasa. But MastaQuest, who would start rapping a number of years later, was keenly watching on the sidelines.

I dropped rapping and focused on my scholarship. He was rapping but really not publicly. But that's when he met people like Zakah of Wenyeji, part of the MauMau crew, Kitu Sewer and the late producer G-Ganji, whom they used to call Sniper. It was 17 years after I last went to the studio as a teenager that MastaQuest - on one occasion after he came to visit me at my house - nudged me to consider rapping again. But the plan was to do it for ourselves, as a secret extra-curricular activity hahahaha! Because we already had our careers set up, him as a geologist and me as a historian and public intellectual. But I guess our quest for quality music and influencing cultural life gave way, and here we are with The NAKALA album.

Ngalah why music, why rap when you are a PhD holder? There is this myth in East Africa that music especially Hip Hop is normally is done by educational failures, what's your take on this?

On the contrary, rap music, which was itself not considered real music at the beginning, provided my formative education. Rap for me was interesting in the ways that it was subversive, in the ways that it spoke to issues of class and identity, of history and culture generally. Long before I came to these themes in my formal schooling.

And it was amazing that I was being taught these complex societal issues by mostly High-School drop outs like, the whole of the Wu-Tang clan were drop-outs but their debut album, 36 Chambers, got included into the Library of Congress. Same applies to people like Nas, Jay-Z, Tribe Called Quest and closer home people like Tanzanian rapper Crazy King G.K, Gangwe Mob, Mr.2, Kwanza Unit, K-Shaka, Ukoo Flani and many others. These are just amazing artists and poets. And simply rap should be treated and seen as a high art similar to classical music or poetry. So for me, there is no divergence between what I do in the academic space and now in the cultural space through music…

Before we delve into your recently released project Nakala, we would like to know if you have any previously released projects be it an EP, Mixtape or album.  Names and when they released?

There is a song I recorded when I was 17 in Mombasa as part of a rap duo with my cousin. We called ourselves "Rebelz" hahahaha! Modelled after Mobb Deep or the Mashifta rap duos. The song was called Street Rebellion and was produced by Madebe, a legendary British-born producer who had set up camp in Mombasa since the early 1999s. We lost the song though!

Tell us about Nakala, how did this project come about, who were the producers and artists involved in this project? What was this project all about in terms of the theme and overall goals of the project? The project was quite nostalgic for some of us who lived in the 90s.  What pushed you to go back to that golden era of Hip Hop as a setting of your project? Some of the people involved in this who were around and influenced this era were Harry Kimani and Buddha Blaze. How was it working with these legends and what more can we expect from you guys?

The making of The NAKALA album was a very organic process. Like I mentioned, after being nudged by MastaQuest to try rapping again, I agreed to one song, and that was Camaraderie. But we had difficulty at first finding the right production. At least I was a bit more insistent on getting the right production. So I went shopping and networking heavily to get the song to where I thought it should be.

The first recording was with Shaky of Jawabu and Mandugu Digital. When he realized we didn't have a hook (and we didn't) he called Rawkey to throw in a hook. Went for lunch and came back and the hook had been done! Akoth Jumadi came much later to do the harmonies. But before that, I had taken the record to a studio in Austria for vocal cleaning and production, and then later to Grandmaster Teknixx, who was introduced to me by Kaa La Moto, for mixing and mastering. It was after I met Teknixx that I knew I could do a full album.

So I was now the one pushing MastaQuest to do more songs to complete the album. The vybe really was nostalgia. We were reminiscing a lot on the time we used to rap back in the mid-2000s, and the influences we had back then. And with that, I wanted to collaborate even more. I wanted this to be a party. The beginnings of Hip-Hop, you know, Camaraderie! So we leveraged our existing networks to make it work.

MastaQuest brought in Kitu Sewer and a young producer known as RedNylot, who did the beat to Nairobi Feat.Ondi. I met and brought into the project Harry Kimani, Jemedari, Buddha Blaze, N'Jiru (with whom a romantic thing blossomed, oops! Hahaha!) Ondi, Kaa La Moto. Kaa La Moto introduced me to Iddi Singer. Sookie, who did a skit, was the manager of the company under which I decided to do all this music under the known Fanisi Africa. We were basically all trying to make this one hell of a project! Laid back, old school but aware of the contemporary sound, lyrical and entertaining. I hope people get to enjoy it.

NAAGNOOL, was one of the many stand out songs that I vibed with most, I really loved the Somali vibe. How did this song come about and what was the inspiration behind it?

I met BananasOverDose through Buddha Blaze. I met her at a time when I was trying to diversify the sound of the album, which was developing at that moment. I wanted a healthy balance of female and male voices on the project, I think something most rappers don't often think about. So I asked her if she could do a verse on a song on the album and she was down to do it.

Now listen, BananasOverdose is ethnically Somali, and we all know the sort of the strength of the patriarchy in that universe. I knew we would just have to do something subversive. Something feminist, you know. And then I happened to travel to Hargesya, the capital of Somaliland, the breakaway region of Somalia, for my regular work assignment. I was supposed to be there for 3 days but I ended up spending 3 weeks, since I got infected with COVID. So I then found myself having a lot of time, and during my that time my interlocutors in Somaliland would take me to hang out with Somaliland artists, chewing khat and listening to traditional Somali music. I immediately got inspired by the sound. Sent Teknixx a link, and the beat to Naagnool was made. I sent it to BananasOverdose and she immediately fell in love with it. And there the song was made. It was the last to be completed on the album.

Fanisi Experiment. Take us through this lab, what are you guys experimenting about here? How did Fanisi come about and how has been the journey and progress so far? Who have you invited so far and how has been the reception from those who have managed to attend these events so far? What are your future plans for Fanisi?

So like I mentioned before between the years 2004 to 2020 I didn't record any music, or write any rap verses. But I took that energy to academic research and later writing. I hobnobbed a bit with the Kwani? Writers circuit around 2013-2018, and was even part of a team of intellectuals that formed another writer's outfit that I named Sahifa, an old Swahili word for blank page. Unfortunately Sahifa didn't take off. But I had always paid attention to music, especially the history of Hip Hoop, Jazz, Soul and Funk. I read a lot on the business of music and culture and watched a lot of documentaries about music between 2004 and 2020, when we started recording The NAKALA Album.

As a result, I was invited to be part of the panel on Hip Hop at the Shades of Benga online series, a seminar showcasing of a book about Kenya's popular music since 1946. It was during this panel that I met Buddha Blaze, who had been part of the WAPI project during the mid-2000s, funded by the British Council, and later worked with Coke Studios. We immediately began talking about founding a center for research and conversations about the state of Kenyan music. Both of us were also quite nostalgic about the WAPI days, so we also spoke about the importance of setting up a performance platform. In Nairobi, feat. Ondi, there is a part where I say "Nairobi ni jiji la wafanisi mbalimbali" and Blaze was like, that's the name, Fanisi!

So Fanisi Africa has begun working with artists on various projects. Its main pillars are artist incubation, music research and performance. We want to work with artists through various workshops to train them on the business of music. Whilst most existing artist incubation services focus more on the artistry of music and music production, Fanisi focusses on training artists on the business of music (contracting, publishing, branding, distribution etc.).

We are also creating an archive of contemporary Kenyan music, especially from the 1990s, and make this accessible to young musicians and music producers. Our most public facing project has been our performance program known as The Fanisi Experiment, a live Hip Hop show series that happens every first Wednesday of every month, hosted at Geco Café along Mbaazi Avenue in Lavington, Nairobi.

The Fanisi Experiment has gained significant traction and immense interest. And this's because we're doing something different by presenting Hip Hop with a live band. We have already brought on stage artists such as MC Sharon, Kaa La Moto, Vallerie Muthoni, Trabolee and others. The reception has been epic, and more artists are approaching us to be perform.

Future plans for Fanisi is to grow it enough to be able to receive major grants from development partners to enable us achieve our mission. We already have a professional staff running the company, and we have adhered to all legal requirements. I want to get The Fanisi Experiment funded for the long-term as it is doing artist development and capacity building work, especially for Hip Hop artists, most of whom have little to no experience performing with a live band.

Music videos for yours fans maybe? I personally believe some songs on The NAKALA Album must have a video...Who are the people who have been a pillar of what you guys are doing that you would like to shout?  Social media where you guys can be found? Final thoughts?

Yes, videos from The NAKALA Album are in the pipeline. I wouldn't tell you which songs we've selected for video development though hahahaha. We are currently doing short clips, reels and social media promotion however. For regular updates, follow Fanisi on Fanisi.Arts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow my IG page "the_rogue_professor” and Facebook page, Ngala Chome.

The reception to our work has been encouraging. We thank especially the artists we have worked with. Kaa La Moto, Nafsi Huru, BananasOverdose, Trabolee, Fadhilee, Tetu Shani, MC Sharon and many others.

We thank our partners on the Fanisi Experiment, Geco Café, by supporting music in a major way. Big shout out to them.

Thanks for your time kaka and all the best in your projects.

Check out Ngalah via social media;

Facebook: Ngalah Chome
Instagram: the_rogue_proffessor

MastaQuest

Instagram: mastaquest

Fanisi

Instagram: Fanisi
Twitter:@fanisi_arts