Abel Mutua, famously known as Mkurugenzi, is a master storyteller who not only captivates audiences with his narratives.
If storytelling were a sport, Abel Mutua would already have an Olympic gold and probably a Grammy if he were a singer.
Mkurugenzi, as he is fondly known, is a man who can turn a simple cup of tea into a three-part series with suspense, laughter, and a plot twist.
A powerful storyteller he is, but Abel doesn't just tell stories, he lives them, narrates them, and then sells out theaters with them.
Next year, it will be 10 years since Bi Mkurugenzi and I got married. However, we have been together for 16 years.
I knew Judy was the one from the moment we had our first conversation back in college. I had just joined Tahidi High and the fame was kicking in, but she didn’t even know the show existed.
Every other woman I had met before wanted to be with me because I was beginning to become famous.
When I met her, she had a boyfriend straight out of a bad action movie – abusive and insecure. He had planted spies to track her on campus. Every time we hung out, it was like triggering a nuclear alert, he would find out and assault her.
I finally asked, ‘Do you want him or me?’ She said she’d get back to me. A few days later, I got a text: ‘We’ve sorted things out.’ That day, I blocked her number and began avoiding her.
Then one day, she was badly assaulted, that was when she found me and decided to be by my side to this very day.
We did a white wedding but that wasn’t our plan because we both didn’t like the idea. We had agreed to go to the Attorney General’s offices, get married there then host 20 people to celebrate our union.
Six weeks to the AG wedding Judy told me her friends had convinced her otherwise, that doing a white wedding was more appropriate and she insisted on it. Mind you we hadn’t budgeted for it. I had to find funds!
I later destroyed the DVD of our wedding because I was so poor that I had to rely on well-wishers to make the wedding happen. Judy insisted that we couldn't change the date because it fell on her birthday.
I also destroyed it because I cried on that day, and I never want people see me cry.
My wife has seen me cry only twice. During our wedding and when I lost my mother in 2009. Her death hurt me because my mother never got to enjoy the fruits of my early success, never got to witness my wedding and also she never got to meet her granddaughter.
I had been a stubborn child growing up and hoped my mother would be around to see me become a man.
When Judy was pregnant and I shared the story with my mother, she was over the moon. She immediately began knitting a sweater for her grandchild who was on the way.
She passed on October 5. She didn’t even finish knitting the sweater. I have never healed from that. I thought I did, but there are times I wonder, what if she were alive?
I am lucky my wife is around me most of the time. Whenever I feel like I am dipping or being overrun by emotion, I lean on her, or I call my friends for a hang out. I don’t have to tell them what I am going through. I just enjoy the distraction. It helps me calm down.
The best time I ever had with my mum was also the last. I was in the finals of NTV's Top Comic in 2009, and the grand prize was a brand new pick-up. I got wind that I stood a good chance of winning, as I had made it to the final.
I shared the news with my mother and asked her, “Mum, if I win, what should we do with the pick-up?” She said she was getting a set of couches and that we would use the pick-up to ferry them home. Then I asked her if she really wanted me to win, and she said no, she is team Oyoo (Geoffrey).
She loved that guy—said he was raw, real, and funnier than me. Of course she told me if it were up to her, she would be biased and choose me as the winner, but that Oyoo deserved it. She wasn’t wrong. Oyoo was a beast on stage. He was so natural and authentic in his comedy delivery of ghetto life because he was from there. When he won, I didn't feel any disappointment.
Oyoo changed my life. When we auditioned for Top Comic, there were thousands of us because the auditions were held across the country. Then the number was whittled down to 30, then 15, then nine.
Filmmaker and entertainer Abel Mutua.
Only six of us made it to the finals. Two weeks before the final, Oyoo called us to say if he won, he would give each of us Sh100,000 as there was no second prize and we had come a long way since the auditions. We tried to convince him not to, as he needed the money more than any of us. His brother and mother were both in hospital. But he was adamant and insisted on keeping his promise. His brother died few minutes after he was crowned winner.
