Time, time...time, time, can be a second, a minute, an hour, or even a day. In strings, brass, and well-placed prose, time can be brought back, and the beautiful past a breath of life, to the waning present.
And so is music. Bards are our keepers, making sure we don’t fall down a mountain of blues.
“Hata walete wizi kwa kazi, tunawaandalia teachings mezani. Tangu enzi za nyatiti, zamani, wanajua sisi ni nani,” Ukoo Flani’s Zamaney is blasting as I write this.
I’ll be careful not to bore you with semantics and loosely placed lyrics; my coffee is strong, and an entire pack of smokes is almost gone.
Yet I couldn’t help but converse with you a little about the beauty of music and how much it teaches us in the chaos.
I remember the black sea shimmering in the moonlight, the waves crashing down below, and the sheesha smoke peppered in the sharp smell of the salty air. Music was playing in the bar, Moonshine Beach Club, whispering through the palms.
“This is beautiful, this is how it should be!” My colleague had said, swaying to the beats.
In that moment, the night felt like it had folded itself in half, old rhythms riding fresh winds off the Indian Ocean.
You could almost taste the years dissolving: the raw energy of Kenyan streets in the nineties, the unfiltered joy of taalabs and genge roots, all rising again through the palm leaves.
Time didn’t just rewind; it lounged beside us, barefoot, nodding its head to the bassline.
And that is the quiet power Ukoo Flani carries.
They don’t merely perform, they resurrect. They drag the spirit of nyatiti and street-corner cyphers into the present, dusting it with coastal salt and city smoke until it feels brand new yet deeply familiar.
Under the same Moonshine sky where waves have whispered secrets for decades, they are coming home, ready to turn the bar into a living shrine of memory and fire.
Oh! Poor me. Before I told you why the prelude is long-winded, I just remembered my first time at Moonshine Beach Club.
Well, it stuck! And Ukoo Flani Ndio Hii is out now on YouTube.
It’ll be a pity to miss it. Their Homecoming at Moonshine bar, Mombasa.
