Sarabi Band’s inspiring story now retold on film
Members of the Nairobi-based Afro-fusion boy band Sarabi. PHOTO|PHILIP MWANIKI
What you need to know:
The film, which is a profile of the seven men and one woman that make up the band was directed and produced by Nigerian photographer and film producer Taye Balogun. Balogun runs Silhouette
Pictures and has previously partnered with Kenyan photographer Mutua Matheka on a 2014 photo exhibition titled ‘Why Africans Are Not United’.
Depending on your locality, the word Sarabi could mean different things. It could refer to Simba’s mum in Lion King or even a fancy roof top bar in the heart of Westlands. For the purpose of this article,
however, Sarabi is a band that consists of nine super talented young people from Nairobi that sing conscious music and just had a documentary about them launched last week at Century Cinemax Junction.
If you go to the movies, and by the movies I mean the cinema and not a corner store where they use duplicators to make bootleg DVDs, then you know that even Hollywood’s biggest hits rarely ever fill up
theatres. Music is our Weapon, a documentary on Sarabi Band, filled up not one, but two theatres when it launched in Nairobi on Friday last week.
The film, which is a profile of the seven men and one woman that make up the band was directed and produced by Nigerian photographer and film producer Taye Balogun. Balogun runs Silhouette Pictures
and has previously partnered with Kenyan photographer Mutua Matheka on a 2014 photo exhibition titled ‘Why Africans Are Not United’.
The film begins with a montage of the band’s members performing at different venues across the world, from Sauti za Busara in Tanzania to the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. The film then delves into the
backgrounds of each member and how they ended up getting into music and the consecutive formation of the band.
Through the film, we learn that the existence Sarabi Band has a lot to do with a mentorship program at the Mathare Youth Sports Association and the hard work of one George Nderitu who trains youth at the
centre. Nderitu mentors the band members from a young age, opens their world up to opportunities and oversees the formation of Sarabi from two different groups; Sauti za Kwetu and Wembe Kali.
The film tackles the difficulty that the group of young people go through to see their dreams to fruition. The leaving of some band members, breaking into the limelight, fighting poverty, what influences their
music and distinct sound, the arrest of the lead singer Mandela in a 2014 protest, becoming parents and giving back to the community.
Other than interviews from the band members the film, also features appearances from among others activist Boniface Mwangi, rapper Juliani, Jacque Nyaminde of the Wilbroda fame, Thomas Menzer, the
band’s manager and Abdul Jibril of Thursday Night Live.
