Today I walked through town with a “celebrity.” Boss is one of the members of the very popular gospel ragga group MOG (Men of God). Their recent win at Kenya’s Chaguo la Teenzie awards (the Kenyan version of the Teen Choice awards) has lifted them to celebrity status in most people’s eyes.
I was interviewing Boss for a profile I’m writing about the group. He was still away in school when I interviewed the other two member of the group: Tony and Kenti. This was my chance to get his story and find out a few more things about the group.
We met at Nairobi’s most common meeting place: the Bata shoe store at the Nairobi Hilton Hotel. Since it is easy to find and conveniently located near the main bus stage in town, there are always groups and individuals standing outside waiting to meet someone. Boss was a few minutes late but finally I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket and about the same time I saw Boss’s number, I saw him standing in front of me.
Although we had met a couple of times before and I am a good friend of the other two group members, he wasn’t actually sure who he was meeting. Tony had just told him to call Nimo, but since Nimo is a Kikuyu name, he thought he was meeting a black Kenyan chick, not the obviously white girl that I am.
In search of a quieter environment we headed to a small restaurant (hotel) frequented by the MOG guys. We managed to get a seat further from the noise but the place was still too noisy for my voice recorder to be effective and to my dismay I actually had to take notes. I was grateful that I had already heard much of the story from the other two guys so I only had to focus on Boss’ unique side of the story.
After a cold soda (by the way how do you explain the etiquette of the interviewer paying not the interviewee?), an interruption from Tony himself and a nice chat about many different topics, Boss walked me back to the bus stage. It was then that I realized that I was walking with a celeb.
When a girl walked past blatantly staring at us, Boss asked me if I knew her and I realized that no I didn’t know her but she probably knew Boss. It didn’t help that he was wearing big, bold sunglasses and a blazer with jeans. At least a few of the girls we past gave me that definite questioning look as if to ask, “Just who do you think you are?”
Well now, I have tasted a tongue teaser of the flavor of being a celeb…and I hope I never am one.
