Is Gen Z keeping RnB alive? How Bobby V’s Nairobi concert went down!
By Thomas RajulaGen Z and RnB are not the two words you would think you would find together in a sentence that didn’t have “don’t” before love, but that is where we find ourselves today.
We’ll get to this further down, though. On May 25, We Love RnB held their first-ever RnB-themed concert at the ASK Dome produced by BNB / TuneCore.
The concert headliners were American RnB legends Bobby Valentino aka Bobby V and Horace Brown. Kenya’s very own Okello Max, Sanaipei Tande and King Kanja also performed on the night.
Despite freakishly heavy downpour that Saturday evening, leading to gushing “rivers” along the road leading from the parking to the ticketing area, as well as having some leakage within the dome’s roof that saw some couches and spots on the stage getting wet, the night would end on a high for the attendees.
Sanaipei Tande’s can literally put you in a trance with her voice. With the ability to go silky smooth or raspy and low, this made her performance tag at different emotions; from hyped in “Kwaheri” (which she also rapped Jua Cali’s parts), to the almost tear-jerking, mellow “Amina”.
Nameless killing performance on stage with high physical and vocal energy in year 17 as a performer is something that can only be said alongside names like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lebron James.
He moves like he’s not even 40 let alone closer to 48. His “Sinzia” has this rock-type interlude that just blew the roof off the dome. DJ Adrian came in to cement the old-school vibe with mixes that included Bongo Flava, hip hop and R&B from as far back as the ’90s to the early 2000s.
Okello Max has become a crowd favourite at almost every show he performs at, even though he’s not the most enthusiastic or energetic performer you’ll come across. But neither is his music.
His laid-back tracks are just that good to listen to and he’s still a dope performer at that, with a vocal-heavy performance. King Kanja’s set was very interesting. He brought out some of the former Camp Mulla group members on stage with him, which was quite the trip down memory lane. He also performed some of his tracks.
He then introduced Bobby V and the crowd were thoroughly entertained. From “Slow Down” to “Mrs. Officer” to “Tell Me” to “Beep”, he sounded exactly like he does on the records, and then some.
He even showed off his piano skills as he performed “Turn The Page”. That said, there were a few off points. I guess, when you have an expected audience of a lot of the older millennials and younger boomers, you don’t expect the same kind of emceeing you would get at an event that has a majority of the later millennials and Gen Z.
I felt like the emcees Fundi Frank and Chiko Lawi were flat as a team. They didn’t seem to have a chemistry that would have one bouncing immediately off of what the other was on, but especially seeing that Fundi was unable to improvise. The intermissions between acts, emcees and deejays sometimes took too long and that meant that there were too many highs and lows for one to genuinely have a tremendous night. Also, there were some random/spontaneous folks allowed to get on stage and handle the mic.
It was really awkward. Now, back to Gen Zs and RnB.
It was interesting to see some of them come out to what would be termed a “Wazee hukumbuka” type of event. But when you have an artiste like SZA being one of the highest selling artistes (albums and shows) in the world of this generation, you get to understand the influence this lovers’ sound has.
Even in Kenya, artistes such as Nikita Kering, Kinoti, Kethan (formerly Ethan Muziki), Njerae, Lafrik (who also performed at We Love R&B), Brandy Maina, Xeniah Manasseh and Vijana Barubaru have created a name for themselves from the music. An analyst argues that even Gen Z men are very soft and in-tune with their emotions, and that is why they listen to the genre. And for the girls, it’s all about how the delivery and lyrics of the genre’s songs make them feel. Dee Wambui says, “I’d definitely say from listening to Classic 105 in car rides with our parents.
So it became part of our growing up. Personally, I love the way it’s just slow and healing.
Like the rhythm is just right and, for a world that’s constantly moving, it almost feels grounding. She adds, “I think most of us (in the Gen Z bracket) are also just lovers for real and that’s why we relate it to it. (Also, it) Definitely elicits nostalgia, when times were simpler. It just has happy memories tied to it; that’s the music “The Beat” used to play.”
Also, most of the Gen Zs who like these songs have millennial siblings who grew up listening to the genre, as model and influencer Jean Ojiro explains, “Personally, I love it a lot because I grew up listening to that type of music via influence from my older sister. And I’m an old soul.”
The music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s, continues to live on with a bit of a spin.
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