As of last week, Israel Mbonyi’s runaway Kiswahili gospel tune “Nina Siri (I have a secret)” had garnered a whopping 39 million views on YouTube. And this is just one channel. There are more than a few others on the platform that easily make a few more million views. ALSO READ: Former Kenya VP acknowledges Israel Mbonyi's song ‘Nina Siri’ The views alone suggest that in the pantheon of East Africa’s gospel artistes, Mbonyi must currently be the “shiningest” star in the region’s already crowded Christian music landscape. For those who haven’t yet heard the song, it is a rousing Christian praise and worship performance with an irresistibly rhythmic and jubilant fervor delivered through a catchy refrain that celebrates his “secret” and the courage it gives him in Jesus. A caveat is probably necessary at this point, lest a troll rudely wonder whether this column has turned to religious proselytising. The interest in Mbonyi here is not that of a believer; it is merely cultural. I once confided here some years ago how I am a cultural Christian. Which is to say I enjoy a good hymn or rousing beat such as Mbonyi’s – including other Christian artistic and cultural artifacts as in Christmas and the like – purely for the enjoyment of it irrespective of little or lack of religious belief. Indeed, many who listen to, or watch it live or on video find the performance compelling. This is such that it has even enlisted eminent fandom the likes of Kenya’s former vice president Kalonzo Musyoka. He claims its poetic rhyme and doesn’t seem able to resist dancing to it, sharing it on X (formerly Twitter). I've actually been watching this young man called Israel Mbonyi, he's Rwandese but he sings like a Tanzanian. He's very poetic when he sings 'Nina siri...' then 'jasiri’, Dr Musyoka enthused about the rhyming. Taking this observation as an example, two things stand out for some fans regarding the singer and his music. There is the surprise about his impeccable Kiswahili, especially for a Rwandan, as hinted by Musyoka. The second is how Mbonyi’s musical performance reminds one of the distance Christian singing has come. First, the Kiswahili. While it is increasingly being spoken in Rwanda, it still hasn’t widely caught on in some parts of the country just yet. But in places like Rubavu in the north bordering the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, coming down to Musanze where I once had a long stint, almost every local I interacted with those years ago spoke Kiswahili, albeit with a discernible Congolais French accent. This is not surprising, recalling how the language spread through the slave trade from the East African coast to the hinterland and the Congo, where it remains widely spoken. It also turns out that Israel Mbonyicyambu, his full name, was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, before his family moved to Musanze, where he grew up. If so, no wonder his Swahili is impeccable. He might have brushed it up, having solely sung in Kinyarwanda until last year when he dropped the Nina Siri collection. Related to this, and although Mbonyi may not have mentioned it, his taking up the language might have been in answer to those of his fans who had requested he belts his songs in Swahili to be inclusive of those who don’t understand Kinyarwanda. The other thing about his energetic and danceable music is how it puts on display the distance gospel songs have come. Remember that Christian singing – or music, if it can be called that – in Africa came with the missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Depending on the denomination, the singing ranged from the stodgy Latin incantations of the Catholic masses to the hymns of the protestant churches written by Europeans but that were often translated into local languages. Throughout the decades since the introduction in the continent, the singing was mainly liturgical and confined to churches or religious events, though the songs might be summoned by the laity during baptisms and funerals, and other domestic events. The laity could sway as they sang, but they were never allowed to dance. Dancing to the hymns was considered sinful. It was often condemned as an expression of the decadence of the secular world of fornication and harlotry in bars and such supposedly unsavoury places. This was until the charismatic Pentecostal churches showed up in the continent in the late 1970s and early 1980s, infused with the lively genre of Black American gospel music melded with past and the ever-evolving African cultural flavours, according to Jean Ngoya Kidula, a daughter of the region and acclaimed African scholar on this. And thus, today we have Mbonyi's exuberant praise and worship, following in the footsteps of a generation of similarly rousing local gospel musicians.
