Thursday, October 10, 2024 - On the afternoon of Thursday, October 13, 2005, Kenya’s popular musician and activist Poxi Presha breathed his last at Nairobi’s St Mary’s Hospital in Lang’ata.
According to the family, he had been admitted at the hospital two
weeks before his death and was being treated for tuberculosis. On the fateful
day, he had struggled to breathe most of the day, and by 3pm, he was no more.
During the last years leading to his death, Poxi, as a popular
musician and music anti-piracy activist, frequented three places; the courts,
police cells, and hospitals.
Born Prechard Pouka Olang, Poxi got fame in the mid to late 90s.
Among his biggest hits included ‘Otongolo Time’, ‘Mummy’, ‘Jaluo Jeuri
Fullstop’, ‘Jamriambo’, and a rendition of Gabriel Omollo’s 70s hit,
‘Lunchtime’, among others.
Poxi, through his music, popularized the phrase ‘But Do I say!’,
mostly used as a bragging statement amongst the Luo community.
When the new crop of artists like Nameless, Redsan, Jua Cali, Mr. Googz and Vinnie Banton, Deux Vultures, and Longombas, among others, ruled the
airwaves, Poxi’s name was still above them, even with no new music.
Poxi made a decision to stop creating new music, but instead fight
piracy. In many interviews, he said that he was famous but with no money to
show for it. That’s why he went for those who pirated music and denied
musicians their royalties.
But what’s the real story here?
Poxi went to MCSK, then run by lawyer Jennifer Shamallah. He
realized that MCSK was not collecting as much royalties from music consumers.
The real beneficiaries were the music distributors in RiverRoad, Ngara, and
other towns across the country.
He formed a vigilante group and started terrorizing the
distributors who were pirating Kenyan music. This did not go down very well
with those well-connected businessmen.
More often than not, Poxi found himself behind bars in dingy
police cells across the country, where he was locked up for days on different
occasions. Court cases followed.
It is alleged that in these police cells, he contracted various
forms of illnesses, including Tuberculosis, which finally killed him.
Was he really the ‘bad boy’ of the Kenyan music industry?
Oh yes, he was.
He was one musician you could not cross in a deal, ask any
promoter who did events those days. He always moved around with mean-looking
men, who acted as his bodyguards. He knew the anti-piracy war was not easy, so
he needed to look and be tougher.
Very few journalists could interview him those days, and he only allowed those whom he trusted. Before I could personally interview him for the first time, I had to go through a colleague whom he trusted. But we later got acquainted and could easily do so thereafter.
One chilling bit is that when the government formed a commission
of inquiry to investigate the extent of devil worshipping in Kenya, rumor had
it that Poxi’s name was in it.
When I asked him about it, he laughed it off and dismissed it as
just rumors. He said his success made people get confused, because his name was
very well respected in the music circles, even with no new music to back it up.
He neither confirmed nor refuted rumors that he was receiving
bribes from businessmen he fought so hard, who were involved in music piracy.
However, Poxi said that the many times he was thrown into police cells was
because he refused to be bribed.
He formed a company, Talent Works and Rights Enforcement
Limited, to mainly escalate his street battles with pirates into mainstream
court battles. He knew he couldn’t just appear in court as Poxi anymore, thus
getting the organization involved.
At the time of his death, he was 34 years old and survived by a
wife and two children.
Poxi mentored many musicians in Kenya.
Via Veteran
Entertainment Journalist John Mosh Muchiri.
The Kenyan DAILY POST.
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