New Music on the Radar AUG 1 (Blinky Bill. Fadhilee Itulya, KANZU and Breeder LW)

Welcome to our first edition of August, where we dive into the latest sonic offerings from Kenya’s vibrant music scene. This edition features four standout tracks that capture the pulse of contemporary East African artistry. From Blinky Bill’s poignant exploration of fading love in Bella, featuring the ethereal Lisa Odour-Noah, to Fadhilee Itulya & Iborian’s spiritual, groove-infused prayer in Kila Siku, these songs defy easy categorization. We also unpack Kanzu featuring Genes1s’s satirical take on Nairobi’s nightlife and legal ambiguities in HONGO, before concluding with Breeder LW’s high-energy hustle anthem, Maziwa, a deep dive into the modern obsession with wealth. Join us as we explore the themes, production mastery, and cultural impact of these compelling new releases.

Bella – Blinky Bill featuring Lisa Odour-Noah

The opening lines of Bella arrive with a deliberate tenderness, as Lisa Odour-Noah’s voice floats over the instrumentation with the melancholic refrain “Bella Bella o / Mbona hunimisi siku hizi?” Her repeated questioning becomes both a plea and a poetic hook, pulling listeners into a love song that is less about longing for what was, and more about confronting what is slowly fading. Both Blinky Bill and Lisa assume the voice of the aggrieved lover, the narrative unfolds as a dialogue we only hear one side of—filled with tension, vulnerability, and an aching desire to be understood. This isn’t puppy love; it’s seasoned affection grappling with emotional distance. The chilling question “Penzi lako lanitia hofu, mbona waniona hivi hivi?” captures the unease of being loved selectively.

Blinky opens his verse by bending expectation. There’s no romanticized preamble, no reminiscing about how it used to be. Instead, we get escalating emotional cues, “Feel it everyday ahaa! / Sikutarajia ahaa! / Nakapitia ahaa! / Mambo kuchemka ahaa!” before he slides into a melodic rap cadence to articulate his clarity: “Ka kuna gap kuna gap ah / Kaa huioni nai ona ah / Kumebadilika!” It’s in this mixture of fragmented expression and confident melody that Blinky captures a layered emotional reality: wounded but not weak, confused but not incapable of naming the change. His vulnerability shows more fully in the pre-chorus, where he softens: “Tafakari tulipotoka, my baby, my baby / Na ni nini unachotaka, my baby, my baby (inaniuma sana)”. The second verse pivots again, this time to assertiveness and reconciliation. He raps “Mademoiselle pick up your cell / Tubonge leo tupige story / Maneno mingi sipendelei / Wajua tu Nairobi ngori”, showing both intimacy and streetwise honesty. As the song cycles toward its end, the repetition in “Mbona wanizungusha, zungusha zungusha?” and “Mbona kunitatiza, tatiza tatiza?” borrows a familiar rhumba device that signals emotional catharsis.

Blinky’s production is masterful, embedding layers of Ghanaian highlife, East African Rhumba, and modern jazz into a seamless continental sound. The highlife foundation with its syncopated two-finger guitar licks, executed by Benjamin Kabaseke and Sedar Malaki, finds fusion with jazz-style phrasing and call-and-response structures. These guitar lines are both percussive and melodic, grounded by Blinky and Sedar’s basslines, then elevated by subtle horns from Benji Khaleel and Jason Rae. Instead of the traditional  Ghanaian atenteben flutes, Blinky opts for East African reed flutes, a culturally rooted touch that evokes both modernity and memory. The decision to self-produce gives him total control, and the result is something that sounds simultaneously local and borderless ; a song for the well-traveled ear: elegant enough for lounge rotation, mellow enough for late-night drives, but still club-ready if the speakers are good enough to catch the delicate interplay of guitar and flute. It’s not every day that a track can make you dance and ache in equal measure.

In recent years, Blinky Bill has stood at the forefront of redefining African music’s global identity. As a co-founder of the genre-bending collective Just A Band, and as a solo act with albums like Everyone’s Just Winging It and We Cut Keys 2, he has fused Nairobi street sensibility with digital futurism. Lisa Odour-Noah’s presence on Bella is more than feature duty—she brings a depth and vocal elasticity that matches Blinky’s emotional range beat for beat. That this song arrives in the same year Blinky was inducted into the Recording Academy and recognized by the New York Senate is no coincidence. Bella doesn’t just echo the sonic versatility that got him there; it proves that continental African music doesn’t need to translate itself for global acclaim—it just needs to be this good.

Kila Siku – Fadhilee Itulya & Iborian

In Kila Siku, Fadhilee Itulya and Iborian craft a devotional soundscape that is both restrained and powerful, anchored in spirituality and structured like a prayer that grooves. The song opens with a slow-burning electronic build—synths humming at a low frequency, African triangles chiming like distant church bells, and a lone electric guitar ringing with sacred clarity. Then, in a surprising and bold gesture, the first few lines of Kenya’s national anthem are sung softly: “Ee Mungu nguvu yetu / Ilete baraka kwetu.” The invocation isn’t just patriotic; it’s deeply spiritual, drawing from both the Christian nationalist ethos and the emotional residue of a nation often forced to pray its way through crises.

But this is no sermon, even though it draws on phrases from the Lord’s prayer. As the synths accelerate into a firm Afrohouse beat and the guitars multiply into a cascading melody, Kila Siku becomes a soulful plea wrapped in movement. Fadhilee’s vocal texture carries the heft of a griot—his tenor trembling as he navigates low and high notes, invoking not just daily provision (“kila siku tupee”), but protection: “Utu epushe mapito ngumu, mazito ngumu(lead us not into temptation) / Wapika sumu, wanyonya damu.” The phrase is unnerving in its specificity, deliberately unsettling in a way that reflects Kenya’s eerie flirtation with spiritual paranoia where public failures are routinely spiritualized and political grief is processed as warfare against invisible enemies. The lines evoke the lingering trauma of the Shakahola massacre amid recent reports of exhumed bodies in  Chakama Ranch, Kilifi County. Fadhilee, having spent significant time at the coast, does not merely sing of fear; he channels it, reminding us how faith, manipulation, and suffering are often interwoven.

The bridge bursts into a pseudo-praise session, led by a call-and-response between Fadhilee’s “Baba yetu” lines and a choral echo of the chorus. This session is not just sonic embellishment—it’s ritual, familiar to anyone who has stood in the emotional heights of a Kenyan church service or danced through catharsis on the dancefloor. Iborian, best known for his earthy, Afrocentric take on electronic house, anchors it all with minimalist yet intentional production. Every drum roll and bass synth is deployed to build and release tension, making the track feel like a spiritual crescendo in motion. Afrohouse, often sparse with vocals, becomes expansive here—conjuring not just repetition, but narrative, ritual, and resistance.As a road trip staple or an oontz DJ’s midnight secret weapon, Kila Siku finds utility in both movement and stillness. It’s danceable, yes, but also deeply meditative—a track that can shake speakers and stir souls simultaneously.

This collaboration is significant not just because it brings together two distinct musical minds—Fadhilee’s traditional Luhya-rooted soul and Iborian’s Nairobi-style electronic edge—but because it signals a new maturation of Kenyan Afrohouse. Fadhilee’s presence in the 2025 album THE PRBLMST, featuring heavyweights like Fancy Fingers, Brian Sigu, and veteran Tanzanian rapper Fid Q, was already a statement of ambition. But Kila Siku proves that Afrohouse in Kenya isn’t just a beat trend—it’s a cultural modality. It can protest without shouting, worship without preaching, and innovate without abandoning its roots. Alongside the global rise of Kenyan acts like Idd Aziz and Sofiya Nzau, Kila Sikustands as testament to a growing sonic revolution:

HONGO – Kanzu featuring Genes1s

In HONGO, Kanzu and Genes1s deliver a track that operates in the grey zones of Nairobi’s night life and legal ambiguity, where bribes are not just survival tactics but punchlines. Kanzu opens the track by adopting a party boy persona whose intoxication never quite dilutes his wits. With slurred bravado, he sets up the irony: “Afande asks are we breaking their law?”—only to laugh off the question with “Of course we are breaking the law!” It’s a sarcastic thesis that underpins the entire song. By the time he confesses, “Na ziki niharibikia nakupitishia hongo joh!”, it’s less of an admission than a casual flex. Kanzu’s satirical lines like “Kenya joh nakuambia / wapi pengine nitahamia?” turn systemic corruption into a dark joke that hits because it’s real. He recounts being manhandled, handcuffed, and thrown behind a police pickup with all the casualness of someone reliving last weekend’s rave. Even the violence is diluted by humour: “Tulitandikwa mavijana tulidhani sisi maninja.” The price for freedom? A neat KES 6000. And he brags that, at this rate, he might spend “mita” in bribes alone. It’s unfiltered, ironic, and unbothered—exactly the kind of honesty that can only come wrapped in trap.

Genes1s picks up the baton with a swaggering verse that references Omollo (a nod to Khaligraph Jones) and delivers bars with rapid-fire confidence. “Nakuitisha hongo / if it gets sticky tuma kitu kama Omollo” he raps, positioning himself as someone who’s just as likely to receive a bribe as pay one. The verse is layered with double meanings: being slick with his hustle while mocking the very mechanics of corruption. Then comes the cheeky punchline parade: “On the mic I’m a malice / I’m a beast / I’m a goblin / yeah my verse goes harder than my c#ck in the morning.” He shrugs off romantic commitment with a police metaphor—“siwezi cuff juu mi sio afande” and paints his come-up with the line “she a groupie coz now I be somebody.” From cocky boasts to wordplay-packed metaphors like “rap ina slap ka chapati na kadengu,”Genes1s proves he can flip rhyme schemes like a magician with a deck of vulgar cards.

Kanzu handles production with the finesse of someone deeply embedded in the genre. The beat is a trapscape built on a minimalistic but layered foundation. There are no traditional drum patterns here, just looping synthesized organ tones that feel both foreboding and melodic. The psychedelic electric guitar buzz in the background injects an edge of discomfort, a reminder that under the bouncy feel of the track lies something a little darker. Sampled choir vocals hover ghost-like in the choral sections, giving the party narrative an oddly spiritual undertone. It’s sonic satire at its best—reckless but refined.

This song is another marker in the emergence of Kilimani’s new school of trap—a scene led by artists like Sabi Wu, Korbs, Ouma wa Mafegi, and now solidified by this very collaboration between Kanzu and Genes1s. Kanzu, best known for engineering tracks like Lil Maina’s Umbwakni, brings his technical muscle while flexing lyrical dexterity. Genes1s, with multiple albums and a recent Sol Generation Publishing signing under his belt, is clearly building a lane that doesn’t wait for validation. Together, they wield humour as a weapon against the bleakness of systemic failure. HONGO doesn’t offer solutions—it offers catharsis through satire. And in a country where the line between joke and tragedy is paper-thin, that might be the most culturally resonant commentary trap music can offer.

Maziwa – Breeder LW

Breeder LW, the highly anticipated EP Mdogolo’s last single, Maziwa, dives deep into the contemporary obsession with wealth. The title itself, meaning “milk,” cleverly morphs into slang for money, setting the stage for a hustle anthem that is both humorous and profoundly relatable. The track opens with an immediate declaration of its producer, Drop Boy, before launching into its core theme. Breeder LW’s chosen flow within the verses, a deliberate single type, along with the one-word, limited-syllable rhyme scheme of the chorus, aims to create a sense of discomfort, almost like a hypnotic state, mirroring the all-consuming nature of the money chase. Lines like, ” Nikisota naskia nikona fever,” perfectly capture the persona’s almost feverish dedication to accumulating wealth. The track then delves into the sacrifices made for this “Maziwa,” highlighted in the pre-hook: “Juu ya paper chase na mafiller/9-5 ni juu ya masilver,” a stark portrayal of the daily grind. The first verse is littered with quotables, from the pragmatic ” tuna weza participate ka ina lipa” to the football-infused boast, ” papa vile niko janta, me nina scatter/utadhani prime Ronaldo na number saba/ pay me kwanza ndio shagla iende sambamba.” He even observes current fashion trends, noting, “Weekend ni majorts na ma timber/ Na petite wawili wote ni madiva.”

The production is a masterclass in controlled discomfort. It begins with a sped-up, high-pitched, auto-tuned pop sample. A high-pitched keyboard melody is then extrapolated and looped, creating a dark, foreboding foundation for the instrumental. An additional layer of a high-pitched synthesizer further contributes to this unsettling atmosphere. However, this is balanced by a harmonizing melody, crafted from a synthesized classical piano sound that is more playful and cheerful, preventing the instrumental from becoming overwhelmingly harsh and allowing the rapper to pace himself effectively. Light drumming patterns are used intermittently, with heavier drums marking the time cycles during the more intense sections.

Breeder LW’s lyrical journey takes a spiritual turn, quoting ” Psalm 21, Lord I’m a sinner,” after supplicating, “Jah niepushe na mambleina.” This brief biblical reference might allude to a Calvinistic influence, where the traditional anxiety about “working for salvation” has seemingly transmuted into an anxiety centered on financial accumulation. The second verse doubles down on the primary importance of money, even taking a jab at the high tax rates imposed by the Kenya Kwanza administration: “Tuko outside for the paper/kila rima,kila jicha paperchaser/ All about the pesa like a tax collector.” The verse declares the rapper’s seemingly boundless ambition, emphasizing that accumulation is a virtue in itself: “Rat race ya cheddar si-stop momentum” and “Millions, millions, accounts ime jaa but I still need more/Maziwa inaflow, faida Ina grow.” The song concludes with the admission that money is what grounds the persona, with the final line, “ten toes Niko juu ya maziwa.”

Breeder LW, an UnKut Hiphop Awards winner, has strategically broadened his reach this year by collaborating with diverse artists outside his typical genre, including Bien, Okello Max, and Watendawili – all of whom feature on Mdogolo. Okello Max, in turn, featured Breeder LW on his recent album, Healing. This cross-genre collaboration positions Breeder LW within a nucleus of artists blending various elements into their Afropop style, a strategy that has undeniably generated significant buzz for him. The Mdogolo EP itself is largely an Arbantone project, a burgeoning Kenyan genre characterized by sampling old tracks and incorporating specific beat patterns. However, Breeder LW and his producers have approached sampling with a mature finesse, ensuring that borrowed elements are either softened or re-performed with a fresh perspective. There’s a notable heavy use of non-digital instruments to achieve this, distinguishing it from standard urban tracks that often rely solely on digital refixes of recognizable beats. The inclusion of new Arbantone artist Spoiler 4T3 in a conversational rap flow on the track Rada G serves to legitimize the sound for hip-hop purists who might question its classification, while also demonstrating Breeder LW’s willingness to mentor younger, upcoming artists, setting a progressive example for his peers.

Written by Otieno Arudo