I recall vividly this jam blasting in a number 9 Rosa matatu named "Jiji Spoiler" circa 1990 before Somalis and Ethiopians took over the streets of Easitch(Eastleigh). The speakers were cased in mtungi's(Jerricans).

Eastleigh mats were strictly Rosa's.

Yep i remember Bombax, Libra house, Hotel 680 where campus guys and freshly employed guys would go for Sherehe after receiving boom and first salo. Tusker export would give me horrible hangy though.

Funny enough it was fashionable to kunywa only 4 tusker exports and that was enough.....talk about the virtue of temperance that most guys i know practiced back in the day. I also remember floodies, Carni soul night(Sundays with Paco Perez). Lots of memories man. Yes true, ujana ni moshi

Mat culture was super strong back then man. Nice memories about Jiji spoiler. Sisi on our route (23; Tao-westie-Ungem) we had TUFF GONG SENSI. Their bass would almost shatter windows of the surrounding cars. They had two pointy kondas who were my buddies kabisa. I wonder what ever happened to them. One of my homies from back then sent me a priceless photo of the same (below) a couple of years back!



Where did the time go?
The funny thing is when we were 17-19 we were in a hurry to turn 21. We thought 30 was old!
We should have slowed down and enjoyed those days to the fullest, man.

Ha ha ha ha ha you have an impeccable memory if you can remember even the nicknames of TUFF GONG SENSI! Good stuff bro.

Wawawa I had forgotten about KOBIL park and booze and blast zikis next to the Mall! If you had a pimped out (music system) Starlet back then you were de Kuyz! Where did those days go, man? That place is now OLA and barely recognisable.

Don’t get me started on the chickindees bro. Those two gap years after high school waiting to get into campo were definitely the best of my young life and not just because of them chiles. Seemed like we had all the time in the world. Halcyon, easy days, the chiles were hot and in their best shape. Every day was an adventure and there was always something interesting to do or look forward to!

Reminds me of the Billy Crystal movie City Slickers, coincidentally about a guy going through a midlife crisis. Where he’s lecturing kids during a school open day about life and telling them something to the effect thus; “enjoy these days of youth while you have them; because this is the best you will ever look, with the most energy physically you will ever have….it’s all downhill from here!”

I can literally write a 300 page book about those two dreamy gap years of mine!

I remember how on Sundays some of us would march with our buddies to church. Not for the sermon but for the tunable chiles hapo hapo. St Paul’s, St Marks, St Andrews, it didn’t matter. There was this kayoung lovely stunning beauty ex-LCVR with a slim shapely body designed by a Greek goddess that I had a crush on, who I would bump into from time to time but na macho tu, it never went further juu there were always too many mutual friends around.

We bumped into each other one time at the Saints IB plays that were popular back then at which ordinary non-private school raias like us were allowed to come view. That was another ka-serious plot back then. Honies galore. Funny how all of us youngsters would bump into each other frequently juu plots/hangout joints were few and well known and everybody knew about when and where the next one would be. But soon that puppy-crush faded.

Then came my crush on anaa ex-mso pointy chick was tooooooo fine ma broda. Sema spleng bin spleng. One Furahiday nite me and my homeboy (who lived in Parklands) were rolling around tao in his dad’s ancient vokii that of course he had stolen without permission. 12 midnight after hitting the usual watering holes we decided Visio was the place to be. Who remembers that “long dimly-lit flight of steps” upwards into the club? I can’t remember who was spinning but I do vividly remember THIS being played at some point.



Si visio had a kind of elevated section on both sides of the club by the walls where you could stand and dance and view the dancefloor kidogo ‘from above.’ As the music is thumping and the club is rocking properly, guess who shows up? The kachick. The kasqueeze. The kaspleng. The kasupuu. The kagirl with her equally supious buddy in tow. Grooving on the dancefloor shaking it huku na huku. You guy, fortified by the Tusker exports, I said that night I was not going to leave that club without approaching her and asking her out on a date…. So the pressure was on! Vokii stealer was no help, constantly shouting over the music that she was out of my league. Lakini nilikuwa nimeamua na mimi nikiamua ni hivo hivo. Wueeh Puppy love si mjezo.

Kumbuka "borrowing VHF tapes" at libus and from buddies? Or even Betamax ones if you were unfortunate enough to own a betamax video player?

What about "dubbing" music on Memorexes and TDK's that would sometimes get "chewed" by the boombox ha ha ha ha those surely were the days! This song I heard on a popular mixtape doing the rounds around Nai back then reminds me of those wonderful times and of hiyo ujana ya moshi!



The sands of time keep slipping through the hourglass of life regardless, man.