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Nairobi parties to the Obama beat

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Suzanna Owiyo performs live at WOMEX, Sevilla - October 2008

Nairobi parties to the Obama beat

On 20.01.09 Nairobi celebrated Obama’s inauguration with street parties and lavish clubnights throughout the city. Dancefloors were decked out in red, white and blue, students waved the star spangled banner in the streets. And Obama’s face was everywhere - looking as iconic as a Che Guevara silhouette on T-shirts; serious and statesman-like on the front page of all the Kenyan papers; and printed on the backs of buses and minivans on the city’s traffic-choked streets.

In the city centre

As the coverage began on CNN, thousands of Kenyans flocked into the KICC (Kenyatta International Conference Centre) in downtown Nairobi - a kind of mock-Niemeyer hall in a vast modern square watched over by a pensive statue of the country’s founder Jomo Kenyatta and the iron grey tower of the infamous Lonrho corporation.

They sat quiet and serious until Obama appeared on the giant TV screens – leaving for the Capitol in the cavalcade. Then the Conference Centre erupted into a chorus of cheers, with people waving photos torn from the papers and hand-drawn placards. ‘Thank you God for taking Jaluo (a member of the Luo tribe) to the White house’ proclaimed one adding ‘Kenyans also need democracy’. ‘Obama King of the World’ said another. A couple of young Kenyans, turned to me, shook my hand and embraced me – perhaps the only non-Kenyan in the vast hall. They were students from two of Nairobi’s universities.

‘It is very great to have an African man in the most prominent seat in the world,’ Bernard Ombiro, an engineering graduate told me, ‘Obama has inspired Africans to fight for our common people, to end our culture of impunity.’

Casablanca club

Two other Kenyans insisted on inviting me to ‘the coolest party in the city’ at the Casablanca club (Lenana Rd s/n, Hurlingham, +254 20 272 3173) - to hear Barack’s inauguration speech. And we headed out of town – together with a convoy of belching trucks, rickety matatu combi-vans, cyclists with no lights, swish sports cars and Range Rovers.

Casablanca itself was cool, contemporary Kenya - packed with Nairobi’s cosmopolitan mix of African, Asian and European movers and shakers sipping cocktails in the mood-lit, mock-Morroccan bar and dancing to DJ Dudu Sarr’s African mix of Senegalese hip hop and Kenyan Genge music.

But all went quiet for Obama. When he stepped forward to take his oath you could hear the chirrups of the tree frogs. A moment of history hung in the thick night air. And for a brief moment of eternity everyone - it seemed - felt the world was turning. Then it was done and the crowds burst into an instant of joy, which was repeated when the new president publicly remembered Kogelo – the Luo village in Western Kenya where his family live.

Then the party kicked off in earnest. The quiet garden burst into lively dance music – from one of the city’s freshest bands - Afro-Project, who played tight, contemporary African fusion. Model and singer Liz Ogumbo sang cover versions of US R’n’B classics backed by Genge music rhythms. And she was followed by a soul diva moment from up-and-coming singer Ella Ciisu.

Luo Music

As things wound down I was whisked off to the Kuche Kuche club (by Nyango stadium +254 20 272 3291) by Luo singer Suzanna Owiyo and her entourage. Suzanna is one of the best known artists of her generation, a grand dame of Kenyan song, who performed at Womex in October 2008. Tonight the bar was jam-packed with West Kenyans, downing Tusker beer and laughing together under posters of a smiling Obama. As night turned into day, the band played on – ‘Chill-out Kisumu,’ they sang, ‘Obama is here’. And we all danced together in the light of a new dawn.

Alex Robinson

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