Embarambamba’s ‘gospel comedy’ of embarrassment
What do Christopher Columbus and Christopher Mosioma, aka Embarambamba, have in common? Well, it is their interest in exploring.
Columbus, the Italian explorer, was all about discovering new land to be conquered. Embarambamba, the artiste from Keroka in Kisii County, keeps discovering new ways of embarrassing himself.
Ever since his entry into the gospel music industry in 2018, he has been discovering new muddy patches to roll in, new sites to endanger himself from, and new frontiers for stirring controversy.
As such, the name “Christopher Colobus” might fit him better because he is aversive to staying steady on the ground; instead using it as one giant launching pad to trees, livestock, unsuspecting people, rooftops.. name it.
For instance, in the Nimeanza Safari music video he released two weeks ago, he crosses a busy city road in broad daylight by lying horizontally and rolling to the other side. In other scenes, he dances in a moving car while his waist and legs hang out the window.
Onomatopoeic name
The antics are barely legal but this is Embarambamba, a man who got his onomatopoeic name when he was a drummer for Kisii artiste Mr Ong’eng’o. Drama is the staple for this former drummer.
“Nafanya hii vituko kwa sababu ya umasikini (I do all these stunts because of poverty),” he told NTV in April.
But as he is quickly learning in his exploration journey, some areas are not navigable — especially where women are involved.
In November 2020, he was out there apologising for jumping onto the back of a woman who was dancing before an audience. Out of the blue, he lurched onto the back of the unsuspecting woman.
Then last week, a video emerged of him lifting a hapless woman on stage before laying her on the floor and performing a profane dance. It drew controversy. Can a gospel artiste even imagine of doing that?
But this time Embarambamba is not apologising. He did that at a club in the hope of converting sinners, he said, adding that the lewd dance was part of the “stupidity” he mentions in the song he was performing.
“Before you comment, look at the statement of the song,” he said in a video, but not everyone was sold.
“Funny how people use some verses in the Bible to justify their mistakes,” Naomi commented under the video.
Embarambamba is known for the signature dots in his suits. There are some who joined the dots and deduced that the man was just being himself.
“Without this nonsense we couldn’t have recognised or followed him,” posted John.
YouTube subscribers
And he was right. Embarambamba now has more than 100,000 YouTube subscribers and the platform now runs advertisements on his videos. That is but a pointer to the fame the man, who did not get an education beyond Standard Eight, has earned in his short stint in what he calls “gospel blended with comedy”.
And he has switched from Ekegusiii to Swahili and English in his songs, having noted the national attraction to his brand. He has said in a number of interviews that former President Daniel arap Moi predicted that he would go far when Embarambamba danced before him as a schoolboy in 1997. Is that prediction coming true?
“When I am on stage, a certain power possesses me,” he said in an interview last year.
As long as he keeps that spirit, he will dramatically keep discovering new things along the way, and we hope a day won’t come when he will have to explain himself using that famous refrain of his: “I was confusidi.”
