In December last year, just after the wrap-up of the Safaricom Live countrywide concerts, Wahu took a sabbatical and kept off the public limelight until news broke out that she was expectant.
Her second baby is on the way and the celebrity couple of the MTV Awards double winners Wahu Kagwi and David Mathenge are excited about their soon-to-be-delivered bundle of joy. It was about time their first daughter Tumiso Nyakwea got a playmate.
It wasn’t just news of the coming baby that kept Wahu off the public radar. A lot was going on in the couple’s seven years of marriage as the two shifted gears in sprucing up their businesses, singing careers and maintaining a family life.
On her part, the Liar, Sitishiki and Sweet Love hit maker had opened a beauty parlour in Westlands, Nairobi besides heightening charity engagements. The couple also shifted base from South B to Ngong’ Road. And then a new baby announced impending arrival this August.
“I decided to try my hand in business and set up my salon, Afro Siri, in Westlands. I have also been working at Alternative Concepts, a production company I own with my husband. I have been going to the studio and working on new music as well,” Wahu, the Precious Blood Secondary School, Riruta, graduate told Pulse on Tuesday.
“I recently released a new single, Tell Me, which will be launched this week. It is an Rn’B love song and I am very excited about it because I have never done an Rn’B song before. This will be my first.
“ When Dennis, R-Kay’s understudy, gave me the track, I knew that it would be a love song. I did the video for the song when I was four months pregnant. I can’t wait to officially release the video,” she said, before going ahead to give details about the video whose teaser was leaked on YouTube last week.
Wahu and her singer husband Nameless are arguably the most respected showbiz couple in Kenya often regarded as Kenyan’s first showbiz family. Theirs has been a success story dating back to 1998 when the two met during her first year at University of Nairobi where she was a Mathematics student.
“A friend introduced us at an arts function, ‘This is Monski’, and that is how I knew him. When he was called on stage to perform and did a rap song, I was surprised: ‘So dude can rap! OK’. Later, our attraction to each other grew and love blossomed,” she warmly recalls.
Just before the two met, Wahu had started singing professionally with her first three singles Niangalie, Esha and Liar — all produced at Ogopa Deejays — hitting the market in 2000. In fact, Niangalie got the attention of CBN presenter Victor Oladokun, of the Turning Point International show.
But besides music and maths, Wahu had a passion for modelling and found herself at a crossroad, not sure what career she would finally take.
“I prayed to God and asked him to lead me where he wanted me to be,” she notes.
With a group of other Pulse generation of artistes among them her husband Nameless, the late E-Sir as well as the Kleptomaniax were stirring waters in the local scene. With the new Kapuka beat and with her versatile singing prowess and no-nonsense lyrics such as those in Liar, Wahu quickly became a force to reckon with on the local scene. In fact, apart from the Tattuu trio and Amani who joined the game later, Wahu stood tall as the best female artiste with her hit singles making her a household name. Even then, her eyes were firmly fixed on Nameless.
“He is the only one and only man I have ever truly loved,” she says adding that their 2005 lavish wedding ceremony in the lush grounds of Naivasha Country Lodge will forever remain memorable in her heart.
Of all the numerous awards she has swept across the continent, the 2008 win, where she was crowned the Best Female Artiste during the MTV Africa Music Awards thanks to her then hit song Sweet Love —sealed her position as a continental hero. “Unlike Nameless and I, I don’t think Tumiso will ever become a musician. She does not like public attention at all,” she says of her lovely daughter.