Elani: My Darling was written within two hours
Kenyan band, Elani, went from a relatively unknown group to become one of the most popular urban Afro band in the country. But after their breakthrough year, the Channel O Award nominees hit a dry spell in 2015.
Bryan Chweya, Maureen Kunga and Wambui Ngugi, who make up the trio, took time to speak with Nairobi News about their new song, My Darling, which is a collabo with Ugandan superstar, Chameleon (Joseph Mayanja).
1. Tell us about your media tour – Media tour is all about promoting our new song My Darling which we did with Uganda’s superstar Chameleon. Mostly it is about telling our fans what we went through and our experience while making the song.
2. Why did you do a collabo with Chameleon and how did you meet – We met him during the shooting of Coke studio show and we just wanted to say hello to him. Then we asked him if we could do a collabo with him and he said yes. We were lucky because the last time he did any collaboration with a Kenyan artist is almost 10 years ago with Redsun.
3. Who came up with the song My Darling – We had done the chorus a few years back and when we visited Chameleon we ended up talking till one in the morning and out of nowhere he just said let’s do a song right now. The song was written within two hours and we found a producer in the middle of the night who was ready to go to the studio and by morning, we had My Darling.
4. Why charge Sh30 for your song – As Elani we try and find new ways on how we can reach our fans easily. Everyone has a mobile phone now so it is easy to get the song instead of going to YouTube and trying to download it. It is our platform and there is no middle man. It is also one way to connect with our fans directly.
5. When can we expect your next album – Soon. We wrote many songs when we were in different places in our lives, so the songs will be good and you will get to listen to them soon.
6. Do you all write your songs – We try to but Bryan is the strongest.
7. Why are all your songs in Kiswahili – It’s just a beautiful language and almost everyone in Kenya knows the language. We had an incident where our friend translated one of our songs to Dholuo and the words were just wrong and we didn’t know what we were singing until someone explained to us the meaning. We have never sang it again.
