Why I stepped away from the spotlight - Mr Lenny

After a few singles which never saw the light of day, he walked into the studios of Ogopa Deejays under the patronage of Lucas, and from then on a legend was born. He boasts of a rich catalogue of timeless singles and collaborations like ‘Leo’, ‘Cash Money’, ‘Githurai’ with Mr Googz and Vinny Banton, ‘Juju’ with Nameless, ‘Kamata’ with the late E-Sir, ‘African Woman’ and ‘Baby Don’t Go’ with Kunguru, ‘M.O.U’ with Indiginas and more.

Mr Lenny had a midas touch with his collaborations. He speaks to Nation Lifestyle on his sonic voyage and upcoming album.

Did you grow up in music?

Despite my father being a musician, and having his own band and dance troupe called Afro Sunset, I had no clue that I could sing. My father would have rehearsals with his band members in the house, but he wasn’t that keen to introduce us to music. Growing up, my dad and I were also not very close. We always had tension between us because I found him very harsh. His marriage to my mother was strained, leading to their separation.
 

Your childhood seems to have been tumultuous

It was both good and bad. Good in the sense that we had a normal childhood living in a metropolitan neighbourhood. I grew up with all kinds of people and races, but my family had a lot of things going on. My dad was a jack of all trades; he was a taxi driver, then at some point he started learning medicine all by himself.
He used to love reading, especially things to do with mental health. Which is interesting because, later on, he developed mental health issues himself. Aside from treating people with skin disease issues, he also called himself a parapsychologist. Our home had a certain section which was a clinic. My parents struggled with mental health issues for such a long time, which led to their separation and my siblings and I having to grow up in different homes.

And so how did you get into music?

Because of the strained relationship I had with my father, I never wanted to be anything like him, but God had his plans. Amongst my siblings, I had the most difficult relationship with him. Yet, musicianship is something I inherently picked from him. When I cleared high school, I had no plan to further my education because my parents were not financially stable. My sisters catered for all my financial needs. I had a friend I grew up in Eastleigh with called Kiama. He was a rapper who called himself Dr Pepper, and every time we met, he piqued an interest in music in me.
I started off as a rapper, but I preferred to sing, so I concentrated on choruses. Lucky for us, we had friends who knew and introduced us to Robert Ndirangu of Scratch Records and Clemo of Calif Records. The former recorded some of our first songs. These were not hits and are only known to a few people who knew us personally.
 

What changed your musical fortunes?

Most people came to know of me when I joined Ogopa Deejays under Lucas, whom I consider a legend. People like Bebe Cool, Redsan, Jose Chameleone, Nameless, E-Sir and I all came to limelight because of Lucas. Before I joined him, he was recording all these names that were making waves in the entertainment scene. He had made a name for himself and everyone wanted to work with him.
When I went to see him, the man didn’t even have a studio of his own, he was recording in another studio called Hills Media in South B. Then he would take the recordings of the vocals to his home, where he would master them on analogue computers. He was good at mixing and mastering, but his best tool was his ear for music developed from his days as a deejay. He understood what songs people loved so it was very easy for him to make hits for us.
 

Which of your songs changed your life?

“Githurai” with Mr Googz and Vinny Banton changed my life completely. I had recorded several songs before I joined Ogopa Deejays but I had never had a hit. What people don’t know is that I participated in the remix version of the song. I met Mr Googz and Vinny Banton at a studio where we were burning our CDs (writing digital data onto a recordable blank disc) to sell. It was Vinny who informed me that they were planning to do a remix and they invited me onboard, the rest is history. We knew the song was going to be a hit even before we left the studio but we didn’t know how big a hit it would be.
 

How were you picking these collaborations?

The funny thing is that I was never picking them. Lucas was the one who usually picked the songs I would feature in. After we had done Githurai, he gave me a call one day and told me that he had a young man in his studio called Kunguru, who had an interesting style that would be a perfect fit for my voice. We started with “African Woman” then “Baby Don’t Go”, which was an even bigger hit. Later on, I met E-Sir ,who was the first person to produce an album under Ogopa. We became friends and, before I knew it, I was on “Kamata” with him. It was at this same time that I also met with Indiginas, introduced to me by Lucas, and we recorded “M.O.U”.
When E-Sir had passed away and Nameless was working on an album, we had become very good friends even before we collaborated. One day, I visited him and spent the night at his place. He woke up very early in the morning and played an instrumental which I liked and started scribbling ideas. We came up with “Juju”, Lucas reworked the instrumental and we had another timeless hit.
I look at that period as a favour from God because even I didn’t understand why every song I touched became a gem. Lucas, too, had a gift of knowing when he had a hit on his hands. He had a way of discerning which ideas would work for a song.
There are others like “Leo”, which was done by Musyoka, in which he just called me and said that he had a track he thought would fit my voice. When he played the track, I knew it was mine. I wrote and recorded the song almost immediately. Even before he released it, I knew it would be big.
 

Did music change your life?

It absolutely did. I came from a very humble background that depended on our two elder sisters to sustain us throughout high school. When I finished high school, I saw myself as a man who needed to hustle and find his way around. Before I got into music, I would go to Gikomba to get clothes which I would sell to survive. Another time, I sold mandazis and samosas just to get along. God put me into music almost as a happenstance, but it would become my very destiny.
I never knew I would depend on music as a career. Even when I took a break, it still continued to pay my bills. Music has been everything for me and my family; everything I have done for them has been entirely because of it, even now. The weirdest thing is that I only started making plans with my music when I started seeing the fruits.
 

Do you have any regrets from your career?

My only regret is that we didn’t have social media. If we had social media back then, the mainstream music would have been as big as Naija music.
 

The music industry can be both rewarding and punishing for many an artiste. As a veteran, what advice would you give to an up-and-coming artiste?

Do not believe the hype. Fame can kill if you don’t learn how to master it. It makes you feel like a god and you may become too big, even for yourself. You will not always remain famous forever. Fame has messed up so many people I know, not just in music but even in sports and politics.
Always stay humble. A musician should always remember that they are as good as their last hit. That is what maintains your status and getting hits isn’t easy; anyone who has stayed in the scene for over 20 years deserves respect.
They should also remember to take music as a business and invest in it. When you make a profit, do not spend all of that money into drinking and parties, plough back into your craft, go back to the studio and record, market, shoot a video; do something to keep you going, you cannot eat from one song until you die. Get a manager, probably someone who understands the business of music. If Covid taught us anything as creatives, it is to have a side hustle; even if it is owning a vegetable shack.
Think like a businessman and not a superstar, and you will survive for long.
 

Why did you then take a musical break?

I started a family; my wife had given birth to my first-born son and I was newly married. I decided to put all my focus on my family. Music has a lot of distractions: drugs, women and attention that can easily derail a man. I didn’t want to be a part of the statistics.
 

How did you manage to stay grounded despite the distractions?

In my days with Ogopa, I was a teetotaler, I only started drinking recently. Even then, I wouldn’t call it my thing. I listen to my body when it refuses something, because I know it is trying to safeguard me. I have never smoked or done any hard drugs, they are just not for me.

What is in the pipeline for Mr Lenny, should we expect to hear anything from you anytime soon?

I have an album that I have been working on for some years now, and I feel it is ready. It has 20 tracks, mainly different collaborations and works with different producers, which I want to share with my fans. I will be launching it on the 1st of August at Bla Bla nightclub in Westlands. The album is called Hisia Zangu and has collaborations with artistes like Kidum, Sage, Habib (the late E-Sir’s brother), a lady called Veryl Mkali Wao and a reggae artiste from Kisumu called Shamir just to name a few. It is a very diverse album from my perspective.
 

Which was your favourite collaboration?

I have to give all the artistes I worked with their flowers. Each brought a different kind of flavour to a song. But there are some that stood out for me. Mr Googz and Vinny Banton had some mad talent. They got saved and stopped singing secular music, but we keep in touch, especially with Vinny. E-Sir was an exceptional talent, there was a reason why Lucas had decided that he would be the first artiste under Ogopa Deejays to have an album.
However, one of the most unique people I have ever worked with was Nameless. Apart from music, he is like a big brother, not just to me but also to many other artistes.
 

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