There are a lot of fairly new artists who, in the past two years or longer, have been churning out stuff that pushes the boundaries that confine Kenyan music further and further out into fresh, new, exciting and sometimes mind-blowing territory. While they never get as much coverage as they deserve, their consistency remains admirably steadfast. One such trailblazing artist is Leon Omondi, also known as Mankind.

The Manchild EP was Leon Omondi’s official debut release in mid 2015 via digital vendor Mookh, introducing his unique approach of conveying authentic emotions in a simple but different way. He broke down this approach for alternative fashion and music website Cultured Ego as follows: “Lots of the stuff I’d hear on radio/online felt manufactured even the ‘emotional’ music seemed a bit unnatural for my taste. This sort of pushed me into music production.”

Just as Adeiyu’s Imagnary Chains EP was the most slept-on EP of 2013, the Manchild EP took this bittersweet honor in 2015. The four track EP consists of two halves, exhibiting both the party-friendly and chilled out sides of the steady 130 BPM tempo it maintains throughout. Oh Ye Ye and Leave It Alone keep things hyped up, putting several genres into a blender and then pouring out a smooth sound that you just can’t pin down. It’s all in there; you can hear the zouk, kwaito, afrohouse, EDM, kapuka and so many other influences brought together so well. 

Better  and Little Problem switch to slower, more chilled out future sounds of electronic R&B. Leon’s simple execution of the tracks’ sparse lyrics somehow make them much more impactful.  The complete lyrics of  Little Problem is a simple as “I had a little problem, but your love made it go away.” It’s a damn shame that such an insanely good EP has never gotten a single local radio play since.

Leon Omondi’s subsequent releases since the Manchild EP have also been as impressive and as consistent,  whether it is the simple and sweet Honey, the dancehall-tropical-kapuka fest that is Got Your Back or the optimistic, marimba-happy, kizomba vibes of Coconuts that makes you wish every day was a weekend at the beach. And then there’s The Wakulima, his remix of the hilarious video of farmers digging that has been doing the rounds on Whatsapp and Facebook. His mission in life is to provide infinite eargasms, apparently!

THE BOTTOM LINE

Leon Omondi is one of a fresh and new breed of artists that are redefining Kenyan music beyond the repetitive and predictable that stuff that getting airplay on radio. He’s currently working on a new EP, but meanwhile you can buy the Manchild EP here. It’s one of the best ways to spend your 200 bob today.

Among the most popular fallacies that tend to be bandied around when discussing the state of Kenyan music today is that there isn’t enough good Kenyan music being produced at a scale to justify more TV and radio play. That simply isn’t true. There’s tons of awesome music beneath the surface. There are so many artists on the cutting edge, constantly innovating and creating something worth listening to, but that is an extremely long article for another day.