Former rapper Timsimon Kimani aka Bamboo. His latest book is titled ‘How to Earn USD Outside the USA.’
Book: How to earn USD outside the USA: How to Escape the Rat Race and Be Your Own Boss
Author: Timsimon “Bamboo” Kimani
Pages: 201
Reviewer: Elvis Ondieki
You know the book you are reading is achieving its desired impact when your imagination perches on the pages you are reading and follows you with every flip.
That is the feeling I had when I read the latest book from Timsimon Kimani, best known as Bamboo African Bantu, who has been churning out book after book since he got saved and denounced secular entertainment.
By explaining in the early pages that he hit rock-bottom financially around 2012 but recovered to be a millionaire, he shows the reader why he or she should pay attention to what he is saying.
His days of “usilete compe” are long behind him. A man whose rap songs once ruled the airwaves, helping put phrases like “roho safi” in everyday language, today he is dead serious about life and spirituality.
There were times when he would sing about women and the glamour of fame. He released diss tracks that inspired phenomenal replies, and it is believed that the song “Tuendelee ama Tusiendelee” was inspired by some of the jibes he threw via the microphone.
He now views such forms or entertainment as the pathway to hell. He writes somewhere in the book: “If you focus on poverty and the things that bring poverty (like entertainment), poverty increases.”
The book is titled How to earn USD outside the USA. Justifying why he is spreading the message of earning US dollar (USD) incomes, he writes: “The primary reason for earning in USD (if you or your loved ones live in a developing country) is to earn more than you need to pay your current bills.”
Bamboo’s book falls in the self-help category. I am not a big fan of self-help books, but I am – or was – a fan of Bamboo’s; and so there was a sense of being star-struck when I got the copy and flipped through the pages.
The book’s main distribution format is the e-book, which Bamboo told me is to enable readers to click on the links provided. However, he provided a hard copy for this review.
Bamboo is using books as a way of spreading his message. For starters, he runs an online ministry – Life is Spiritual – alongside his wife, Erica Mukisa. They have written at least four books together. Their ministry educates followers on the path to riches because, as Bamboo explains in the book, wealth is not something to be ashamed of.
“Many Christians, unfortunately, have an ungodly belief that they will never have financial freedom. It causes them to form an ungodly doctrine in their mind, and that doctrine is that poverty is godliness. That piety-is-poverty doctrine comes from people who do not know the Bible,” he writes. “God gave Solomon wisdom and wealth.”
As expected, the book is replete with Bible scriptures. Hardly a page passes before a scripture is thrown the reader’s way to endorse the message.
Some of my takeaways from the book included how to open a bank account and a delivery address in the US, plus the platforms through which people in the US can pay those abroad.
“Did you know you can access the US financial system while living in Africa?” poses Bamboo. “You can receive payments from anyone in the US with a Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Cash App, etc…”
Bamboo also dedicates a chapter to numerous links that the reader can click and be directed to websites meant to simplify certain tasks. They range from a website where one can access thousands of free e-books to another that can remove pages from a PDF document. He also shares links to various artificial intelligence platforms that can assist various everyday processes.
The takeaways also included mind shifts Bamboo wanted to pass to the readers, like the need to create a solution that can solve the problems of a lot of people and thus offer a sufficient market and facilitate a thriving enterprise.
He also dedicates an entire chapter to sexual purity, explaining why an immoral individual will struggle to build wealth.
“Many people never make the connection between sexual purity and wealth,” he writes. “Satan uses the strategy of sexual temptation to steal the start of God’s children and destroy their destinies.”
The book also explains how one can package their expertise in a subject into lessons and books that can continuously generate income.
“Information products represent a multibillion-dollar industry, and monetising your knowledge can be highly profitable,” he writes.
In terms of editing, the book scores quite highly. From cover to cover, I do not remember encountering a single serious typing error. Bamboo must have been thorough in this work because mistakes often divert the reader from the intended message.
However, I believe that Bamboo should have widened the scope of the work and speak to non-Christians too. A prayer in the book where he is asking people to renounce one of the major world religions further alienates people of other faiths.
The book also delves into some of the conspiracies about the symbols in the US banknotes, the meaning of the one-eye signal made by numerous celebrities, among others.
One of his audacious claims in the book reads: “Satan’s economic power is centred on the central banks. Most central banks in Western nations, as well as many others around the world, are under his control. These banks print the money, control education, and influence the media. This is one of the reasons why wealth creation is never taught in academic institutions. It is easier to control a poor, fearful and desperate population than a wealthy, confident and informed one.”
That aside, the book is worth the time of anyone who wants a trick or two about how to conquer markets in the US and get knowledge about concepts like international wire transfers, payment platforms like PayPal, cryptocurrency, among others.
“I moved from the United States to Kenya in 2012. I quickly realised that people who earn foreign exchange in Africa make much more money and can afford to live much better than those who earn in their local African currencies,” Bamboo writes. “The things I was doing to earn USD in Africa could also be done by any African. I was no better than any African. I was leveraging the knowledge I gained in America to my advantage.”
To anyone who would like to get challenged to think outside the box financially, the book is a good starting point, however controversial Bamboo’s brand of Christianity might be.
eondieki@ke.nationmedia.com
