Okatch Biggy: The Benga King Who Mourned Himself

Mourning Himself 

Before his actual death, Okatch Biggy, had died so many times and had the rare privilege of summoning people to his own funeral. He was himself there to mourn with them. He had died on the lips of his competitors who, overwhelmed by his ever-growing fame, resorted to sending panic in his camp. A man, he tells us in Okatch Pod Angima, gathered his friends over alcohol to spread false rumours of his departure. There were many reasons someone could have wanted Biggy dead but he did not until late 1997. 

No musician ever pulled crowds in his time like he did. Even when a strange disease, what many (and these were false priests of his departure) believed to be the deadly HIV/AIDS virus that swept through the music industry in the late 20th century tried to pull him down, Biggy sang on. Towards his last days, one of his fans said during his burial, he was too weak to get out of his car but once he had the mic in his hands, he sent his fans crazy like he did all his days. He loved them. And they loved him back. In life and in death. That was Biggy. In a rebuttal to the rumours of his death, he rubbished them off as the politics of music.

Musiki siasa Okatch
(Music is Politics, Okatch)

A promise to Okello Jabondo

But the story of his relationship with Okello Wuod Obonyo (Okello Son of Obonyo) who is the man behind the song, Okello Jabondo, is dug deep into the mysteries of this world than we can imagine. Rendered in his melancholic half-soft-half-cracking voice, Okatch invites us to his own agony. He wounds the pain around every letter of the song that we cannot help but sympathize with him. Okatch has failed to keep a promise to his friend Okello who, as we are to sadly learn, is long dead and buried by the time of composition. 

Okatch begins by recounting the genesis of their friendship. Okatch, then a young man growing in his career of music, finds himself in a desperate situation. He had been invited to perform in some remote club in Muhoroni Sugarland but unfortunately, it rained and the fans did not turn up. He has not been paid. Okatch is broke. He does not have "something for porridge" which his band members need badly. But even worse, he has no means to transport himself and the band back to  Kisumu where he was based at the time. 

He sings.

Achogo Okello Wuoyi, Okello Wuod Nya'Ramba
(I praise Okello the Man, Okello son of (the great) woman from Ramba)

Wuoyi konyo Wuoyi, Okello ma Ja'gombe
(It is a man who saves another man. Okello the son of the man from Gombe)




Then comes Okello from nowhere. He claims that at the time, he was total stranger or perhaps, their friendship was not as strong. He did not expect any help from him. But he did to Okatch something that not many of his friends had done or could do at that time. Okatch as the leader of the band has to find a means. These were not days of mobile phones when you could call a friend of two to come to your rescue. These were not days of M-Pesa. These were those days when strangers with good hearts were the true friends. And Okello Jabondo became one of those men. He praises him. 

Ikonyo Okatch Dolla ka aonge nyalo
(You helped Okatch Dola when lacked means)

For such a favor, Okatch remains greatly indebted to him and their friendship grows afterwards. I think he (Okello) must have become a common figure in Okatch's shows or close associate in building the band, friends of Okatch Biggy. And as friends are, Okatch may have made some promise to Okello. I don't know exactly what Okatch promised Okello but it was something more than singing his name as is the practice in Luo praise genre. It was more than talking about his good heart. It extended beyond mentions. 

It must have been more like a vow, something that transcended the temporariness of some of these bonds we create out of desperate situations. All I know, from the words of this song is that it was one of the promises we make to life about death. It was an oath. It was not something that Okatch was going to do because Okello was around. He promised that death, he would be there in person to burry him, to testify and tell the world the character of Okello. 

For those who may find it strange, the Luo culture gives a lot of honor to people in death and whatever one does to his friend/family in death, shows the depth of their friendship, respect. And so during friendship, such promises are made. Commitment to be there in person is the height of it.

Here is the promise as he sings it. 

Oik Wuod Obonyo ka aonge
(Son of Obonyo has been buried in my absence)

Oik Okello Wuoyi ka aonge
(Okello, the man, has been buried in my absence)

To nene asingora
(And I did swear)

Kapo ikuongona
(Should you die ahead of me)

To natim neno nyaka e liel
(That I would give a testimony (about the good deeds) even in death (during your burial)

That is the promise Okatch made to his friend in life but did not fulfil in death. What could have made him fail to attend the burial of his friend, Okello? Was he busy with life? Did he forget to attend the burial? Did he lie to his friend? I had difficult time understanding Okatch's action until I lost my own grandfather during the covid-19 pandemic. 

Personal Reflection: Covid-19 Restrictions and the Promise I made to my Old Man

I lost my old, my maternal grandfather when the world was lost deep inside the Covid-19 pandemic. We had planned to bury him like the old good man who taught me what I know about the Luo culture. We had his fellow old men dressed in their mourning gowns. Our able-bodied men (and modern-day warriors) had marked their faces with ash and had their spears ready. The death that killed him had been warned that soon, the spears of our strong men would not spare it. Women have been wailing all over and waking up at dawn to mourn in his name.

We had gathered a large herd of bulls and tied bells around their necks and horns to welcome him home like a man. The man who blows the horn had asked for some special diet and we had agreed to give him on condition that his horn will leave no sleep in every villager's eye.

Jo'Kabar, his clan, had set bulls aside to be slaughtered for their son and there was enough firewood for the vigil. They were ready to give their testimonies till late in the evening. The rain had been asked to cease and even the sun had been informed to wear a ring on that day. It was an old man we were burying.

But just when everything was in place, the government gave the culturally-insensitive directive that all bodies (BODIES!) be removed for burial on the same day, with only family members (around at that time) to assemble for burial.

I was not among those people who were around at that time. I was in far away in Nairobi. It looks easier to say that given the conditions of that moment, there was nothing I could do. Yes, but let me tell you something about the man we had lost.

You see, my mother's father was my man. He was my friend. I spent many school holidays at my maternal grandmother's house and he was always there for us. He was a man of many faces. My grandfather worked as a driver for the Standard Chartered Bank in his early days. That was way before I was born but the time I knew him, he was long retired. 

He was now a sugarcane farmer in his home in Chemelil, Muhoroni Sub County in Kisumu County. He used to tell us the stories of his days in Kisumu and Nairobi, how life was hard but people had good hearts. His days were those when people were still knit together and shared the warmth of African socialism, of life as a community. While telling us these stories, we always had something filling our mouth.

He was still my friend when I was now a man. In his last years, and after the death of my grandmother, he loved to visit my mother who was his first born child. And we slept together with him in my elder brother's house. That is the Luo tradition. Your grandfather is your brother, and his wife, calls you his husband. He was now sick. Old age had caught up with him but he did not lose his sense of humour, he did not stop to tell us the stories. Being young men and now in our days of beginning to look for marriageable ladies, he shared a lot about his youth, his family life. Sometimes we even discussed secretly about his daughter, our mother, and he used to praise her.

He called her Captain! The first of his youth.

He loved and took care of his family. And so, after the death of his wife, my grandmother, he was shaken. He did not remain himself. He told me a lot about what it means to lose a wife when you are old. I have kept that lesson because I don't know what the future holds. I once told him that I was going to bring him a wife, a beautiful young girl for him to marry. He shook his old body with youthful energy.

"You think I cannot? Eeh? You think I am old. Try me. Try me." And that image has stuck with me.

That is the man who had died. This is the man I promised I that in his death, I would stand by his grave till the last mole of dust has fallen. But when he died, I was far a way and could not attend to his burial.

Back to Okatch and His Promise to Okello

It kept me thinking whether promises are ever worth making especially those about life and death. I remembered Okatch and his promise to Okello Jabondo. Or, like in my case, did the government give a directive that all bodies be withdrawn from the morgue and be buried within two hours without people (friends like Okatch) assembling to mourn him? 

Well, the history of it is that Okatch was away in Mombasa when Okello died. In those days, it was not easy to travel from Mombasa to the Western side of the country as it is now. There were no many vehicles those days. And Okatch did not make it to the funeral. Okatch does not know how to forgive himself, what to do with a promise that has remained with him and there's no way he can make it up to him. Okello cannot die twice!

But whatever may have happened, some realities came to me. That some promises have only once chance to fulfil. The promises that life make to death are not postponed. Because I have sat down many days after the burial of my grandfather and asked myself some questions;

Will there be another death, a second death to my grandfather?
No!
Will there be another moment for us to gather round his dead body and weep, chant his virtues, or talk to him?
No!
What will we do with the tears we had saved to mourn him in his death?
What will we do with promises we made to him in his life about his death?
What story will we tell to his great grandchild about the day we buried the man whose stories we have loved to tell them, hem man named them after?

These are questions we may have to ask at some point about people we made promises to because as Okatch Biggy sings on;

To gima kiny akia
I don't know what tomorrow holds

I really don't know what tomorrow holds because I could not imagine my old man sinking in the soil like a dog while I was a way but you will feel what Okatch Biggy felt about failing to keep his promise to Okello.