TikToker Wilson Muchemi on how Kevin Hart, Andrew Kibe impacted his life
Popular Kenyan TikToker Wilson Muchemi, an influencer who dabbles in comedy and voice imitation, has revealed to Nairobi News how American superstar comedian Kevin Hart and American-based Kenyan controversial blogger/podcaster Andrew Kibe changed his life.
He started out his TikTok content creation journey with 700 views but today, he commands a following of over 45,000 people and has over 1.5 million likes on his content.
For videos where he does voice imitations, he garners over 100,000 views for his short videos and wins over more social media followers- especially in relation to Andre Kibe. He continues to cement his name among Kenya’s top TikTok content creators.
Excerpts from the interview:
NN: You also do voices, who is your favorite person to imitate and you find yourself doing his voice over and over again?
WM: I do voices. Kevin Hart’s of course, I love doing Kevin Hart’s voice because I’ve watched so many of his videos. I look up to him as an actor and as a comedian so listening to him for a minute made me catch on to his voice and I’ve learnt it well enough. So I love doing his voice out of all the voices.
NN: When you want to imitate someone’s voice, how do you go about it?
WM: I don’t think its hard, you know, because it just takes a while for me to catch on (to someone’s voice) so you give me a video, I’ll watch it for a few seconds or a minute. I see how the person places their mouth, how their vocal cords change and everything as well as the person’s movements. Then after 10 minutes or so, the accent is done because I’ll have gotten it.
NN: You have also imitated Andrew Kibe’s voice…
WM: Yes, I’ve done Andrew Kibe’s and (prime time news anchor) Jeff Koinange’s. Between Kibe and Hart’s voice, Kibe’s voice was the hardest to imitate because his voice is a lower type of voice so it was a bit hard to get there.
NN: Have you ever received negative reviews from your fans?
WM: Many times! People come at me saying I’m not creative, telling me I am doing nonsense and that anyone can do this. There is always that one person that will comment something that really pinches me so good. They basically called me a copy cat and a dummy version of the celebs among other insults but at some point, I just chalked it down to ‘the views are coming’ so whatever they said didn’t do anything to me.
NN: Do you respond to the haters?
WM: I have. Of course I feel that I have to say something back to someone who makes a comment that really pinches me – especially when they insult me. I have to respond but these days, I don’t engage because I barely look at the engagement and just scroll through comments without really taking note.
NN: Of all the people whose voices you imitate, is there anyone in particular you would like to meet?
WM: Andrew Kibe, call me! Because I know, with Kevin Hart, I’ve tried but he’s too big but Insha’Allah, one day, he’ll come out to meet me. But with Andrew Kibe, of course, there is a way through. I can get to him. If he reaches out, I’m willing to do something with him.