You may not know much about fishermen, or fish for that matter, but maybe you do not need to. Not when Christina Shusho — the Tanzanian gospel singer currently living on the lips of every Kenyan — has distilled it all into a song.
The song, Shusha Nyavu (Kiswahili for ‘cast your nets’) has taken on new waters, floating in the imagination of the people singing it, with each having their definition of kushusha nyavu . Not that this bothers Shusho. Contrary. The gospel singer says that God can use anyone, and she is adamant that Kenyans know what it means. Maybe they do, maybe they do not.
But she is the biggest fish in the water today without showing it. At Nairobi's Tribe Hotel, she is wearing all-white as she comes down from a transparent elevator, her hands clasped in a sort of praying emoji stance. And in that moment, she looked like an angel descending from heaven.
More than 10 years in showbiz gives you a certain je ne sais quoi. She is no longer a marauder in the industry, but a metronome. Her voice, heavy and clear, the ticking heart and pumping lungs of her music career, which, just recently got accoladed as the Best East Africa Gospel/Inspiration artiste at the Magic Vibe Awards 2023.
“Well, I believe in God and so everything that comes, comes through His will. When God’s time comes, no one can stop it. Who would have thought we would be here? God’s timing is the best,” she tells the Sunday Nation.
Shusha Nyavu has the density of a neutron star; it pulls everything toward it, and then into it. But Shusho’s popularity had been established way earlier. Her first album Kitu Gani (What is it?), which was mainly sold in her home country was quickly followed by Unikumbuke (Remember Me) and subsequently ‘Nipe Macho’ (Open My Eyes). Her body of work speaks for itself, and if anything, Shusha Nyavu with some 8,577,528 views on YouTube is only the coronation of a glittering career.
“I started singing in church and I have always sung in church. I live in the church,” she says, adding “I glean off my songs from the apostles and the Bible. The message comes from the Bible and the word of God. I take that and go write my songs.”
Indeed, most of her songs are Bible verses. For instance, Shusha Nyavu draws inspiration from the Luke 5:4. “Bwana Umenichunguza ” is from Psalms 139. “Wewe ni Sababu ” is from Psalms 95:2-3.
“I am not those people who just want to sing to please people. I have to have a message, something to say.”
Shusho herself is an oddity in the music industry. While many people may claim to know things ‘about’ her, none can claim to know her personally. The distance between her work and her life is huge. Her work, characterised by understatement, gravity and precise calibration of emotion, shows the stitching underneath the fabric (that can make her music seem unusually—and deceptively—effortless), keeping us close, but not too close that we may forget she is just a vessel in the Lord’s hand.
This is why when I tried to probe beyond the surface, she remained noncommittal, preferring to focus on the words, rather than the words thrown around about her life.
“I sell the gospel. The rest are very private things,” she said.
“I am an African woman who loves God so much. I am a mother and a servant of God. Do you know I studied IT (Information Technology) in school? But I have never even tried working with it; I found myself in the Gospel, what I have always learned from childhood. I am also an actor."
Her nickname growing up, she says, was Kadada. What would the Kadada then tell the Shusho now? “Be polite. My mother taught me to respect everyone. Anyone the age of my brother I call “brother”. Or uncle or aunt if in the case of older people.”
She says that ministry (God’s work) has taught her how to be humble, respect people and love them.
Shusho is in Kenya as the highlight of the Churchill Crossover Event on December 31 (today) at Garden City in Nairobi to usher in the New Year. ‘Shusha Nyavu’ is the theme of the event, the glue that holds it all together, and one wonders, what does she make of Kenyans' understanding of the message?
“They understood but understanding is different for every person. The song means try again; it is about Peter having to go back to the waters after a whole night of not getting successful at fishing. Try again, but this time with the Lord’s backing. This is the Word of the Lord. Let us all go and ‘shusha nyavu’ . What have you given up on? Try again. If it’s business, if it’s farming, if it’s the church; now you are going back with the Lord’s Word, you are going to shusha nyavu. Try again.”
She adds: “I want my ministry and my life to be an example. I want to be an exemplar in the industry, to treat everyone with respect and kindness. I am a prayer warrior and we are waiting on the Lord to use us to minister to the people. It’s the hand of God that touches the soul of the people, not me.”
How does she keep belting out hit after hit? Perhaps nobody knows. Far easier, perhaps, to gush and coo, to say some people are just blessed, that they just got it. Perhaps, not knowing is part of the mystery of life. To know is to penetrate the meaning of existence. But I think she knows. It is the rest of us, you feel, who are being kept out of the secret.
