Nairobi Tofauti (Remix)

This is one of the first songs I wrote for Not a Rapper, which I then previewed on my Twitch stream sometime in the middle of 2020. Black Hole had created a new beat for it as they'd done with the rest of the songs on that project, but after dropping it, I always felt a desire to re-release it with the beat I wrote it to. I'd been browsing through drill beats on YouTube when I landed on this absolute banger that Saint Cardona had made.

As a kid from a middle-class background, I felt I wouldn't be able to do the song and its subject matter justice by myself, so I started thinking about who I could bring in for a more "ghetto" perspective. My initial target was Smady Tings, who I've always considered the most lyrically adept member of Mbogi Genje, but at the time the fee their manager was demanding was too much for me.

After thinking through my options further, I realised I didn't even have to go that far when an old rapper friend of my brother's was around, so pretty much as soon as that occurred to me, I reached out to Vikta Mirage (who went by GuyMoja at the time). I was very familiar with his ability to tell stories from the hood in his music, and although I'd never heard him rhyme on a drill beat at that point, I never doubted his ability to deliver.