Orange Democratic Movement party leader Raila Odinga recently released a song with Emmanuel Musindi, “Lelo ni Lelo”, which was intended to popularise him among young people. Is it a hit or a miss?
Odinga’s love for the original “Lelo ni Lelo” (Today is Today) by Musindi (a benga musician from Kakamega), which echoes in the prelude of the remix, was the basis of making the new song.
But since its uploading on February 15, the song has attracted less than one million views, which is below what is expected of a popular hit. It begs the question of whether the song reached its target.
The instrumental is well recreated, giving it a bounce and more vibe than the original. The remake makes the tune danceable while pushing the sound quality a notch higher. The video, shot by Nezzoh Montana, who is credited for some of the biggest hit videos in Kenya, is well done.
The various shots of Odinga engaging in various activities such as playing football, serving food and trying to break a leg dancing to some youthful dances, picture him as a perfect candidate. The video editor does his best to ensure that the scenes flow seamlessly and the color pops enough to highlight the peaks of the video.
On the other hand, the song fails to meet what many Kenyans expected. Odinga does not meet the expectations of the hashtag #babatheartist, since he appears to be a vixen rather than the artist. It is disheartening that after all the hype on social media, he does not voice even one melody.
Besides that, Odinga fails to sing in the song and only speaks as all the work is left to Musindi to craft accompanying melodies to create a solo response after every phrase he says.
The producer, Festus Papai, argues that Odinga tried voicing the chorus but the fact that he is not a performing musician limited him to singing on beat and perfect key.
“We recorded Raila Odinga at his home but the vocals we took did not match our vision. The song was just to pass the campaign message, as he prepares to release two more songs. The one with Trio is the one for the youth,” says Papai.
Despite being a creative idea, the song has not lived up to its expectations. According to the numbers on YouTube, it seems to have flopped as Kenyans have not shown it as much love as they do other hits.
The presidential aspirant, who is running for the fifth time, has been trying to get the support of the youth. Similarly, his arch-rival Deputy President William Ruto has also followed suit.
On that front, Odinga previously had his team contract the sensational “Cheza Kama Wewe” hit maker Mario TJ Kasela, aka Trio Mio, to perform at his Azimio la Umoja convention late last year, as a means of persuading youngsters. The move was a crowd puller, with the young artist making tweaks in his song to fit in praise for Odinga.
Trio also performed “Sipangwingwi”, a track he made with Sylvia Saru (Saru wa Manyaru) and Tony Kinyanjui (Exray). The track seems to be more of a banger than Odinga’s new jam, with various politicians using the term “sipangwingwi” while addressing the crowds.
The choice of Musindi as the artist to collaborate with was not a bad idea. However, the fact that the original song had less than half a million views on YouTube is an indicator that it would not have had so much of an impact even with Baba in it.
The two rival presidential aspirants (Odinga and Ruto) are doing all they can to ensure that they pull the youth to their side. However, it is difficult to appeal to them with the huge age differences between the youngest voters who are yet to vote and those who have voted six times.
What appeals to the ones yet to vote? How different are they from those who have voted six times? The presidential aspirants, therefore, must do a youth segmentation exercise to arrive at different modules for different age groups.
For Odinga, “Lelo ni Lelo” was for a wider group but he intends to get into the studio with Trio to target the youngest of the group.
Probably, the Deputy President might also hop in on a track or two with great artists to try and create a banger that will help him campaign as the IEBC chairman is about to blow the whistle, for official campaigns to begin later this month.
