Sound Artistry: Enter the Worlds of Bakhita and Muthoni Ni Mimi

Written by Seise Baĝbo

“Soundscape feels like walking in moments and memories.”

I ask Khita and B (as I fondly refer to Muthoni Ni Mimi), “Would there be a revolution without art?”
“No,” they both say. At the same time.

Three days before this Khita told me, “Art is the revolution in practice.”

So, what happens when three and a half neurodivergent artists (one of us kept swinging in and out of the conversation) sit down for a conversation? It is a 4-hour-long audio recording with all the mhhhs and yeahs in the world, moving from politics to love for cats (allergies for me), the arts and queerness, neurodivergence and language, decolonisation and genocides, capitalism and wanting death. Then random silences and laughing at ourselves. It is listening to passion that has found home and tenacity that knows no compromise. It is a meeting of souls over and over again.

Sitting down with Muthoni and Bakhita to discuss their journeys as artists who create using sound was a long overdue conversation as they’ve both been on my radar in their exploration as creators. Also, have you ever heard Bakhita talk? Or Muthoni rap? Where do they dig these people from? Those voices that sound like “Sit on my face and call me dzaddy.”

All the love considered, we sat in my incomplete dining area surrounded by books, the 3 pm sun doing the most, talking, drinking bottomless cups of tea, and dreaming.

Bakhita and I met for the first time when recording the “Labelled Human” music video for the 2020 Nairobi Design Week. The three to four days we were around each other were really wholesome and from then I started following a bit of their work.

They were so nervous and still so beautiful in their being and element. I was dancing and working to make them comfortable because I was hoping they were queer. Answered prayers. So when we met again at the private screening of the How To Live docu-film by Njoroge Muthoni (where both Khita and Muthoni are featured as creators), we talked about what that first meeting felt like. Then I unashamedly asked them for an interview.

When I asked Bakhita if I could sit down with them, I’d already asked my favourite they/them (read Muthoni) if I could talk to them about their creation process. Both of them saying yes to this and learning how much love and respect they have for each other’s work made the day so beautiful and wholesome, or as we say here, “serendipity.” The conversation the three and a half of us (you’ll meet this half) had was mostly made of reflections and world-building.

“Ciana Cia Mumbi was about unlearning shame.”

The shame of claiming people whose language you can’t speak. The shame of belonging to a people but forever being an outsider to their jokes, their warmth, their being. The shame of knowing that you were got by colonisation. From your tongue to your dreams, dressing to creation, how you bless and curse. They got you and no one even shifted. You were a thing born to be sold.

This conversation happened in English (a foreign language that ingrained itself into our being so well it claimed native-hood).

Baĝbo: What’s your dream now?
Muthoni: My dream now is to learn and unlearn, whatever way that comes in.
Bakhita: To create. To keep creating. To keep churning new avenues of creation and have that sustain itself.

Baĝbo: Are you happy?
Khita: Yeah, I’d say this is the happiest I’ve ever been.
Like what is happiness?

(We all laugh because that’s a walking contradiction.)

Muthoni: I’m getting there. I have moments of joy but I’m still working on being happy.

Baĝbo: If resources were not a problem ever, what would you do?
Muthoni: Traveeeellll. Travel and create.
Khita: Literally, same. I’d still be creating. The wildest most wild things. Whatever my mind can think up, travel while doing it. In different places and experience it with different people.

Baĝbo: When was the last time you cried?
Khita: Today morning.
Muthoni: Yes, same.

We laugh and we prescribe a wail per week.

Half: Romanticise the cry. Have a beanie and sit next to the window.

Baĝbo: What was your biggest act of defiance?
Muthoni: Oh my god! The tattoo.
(The tattoo they have on their wrist.)
Khita: Honestly, my entire adolescence. That and leaving school.

Baĝbo: Who was the last person you forgave?
Muthoni: Myself. That’s the last person I forgave. Hao wengine, tupeeni time.
Khita: I’d also say same just because my mind becomes the meanest person ever. Then my sibling. I love them and my heart is so full again.

Baĝbo: When do you feel most vulnerable? 
Khita: When sharing my likes. Sharing the things I love; my work, my food. Anything that feels it’s for me and I share it with you.
Muthoni: (Pause, laughs) Cc. When I’m sharing myself in whatever fucking way.

Baĝbo: Music or podcasts?
Khita: Music.
Muthoni: Music buuut, I’ve been in a place where… I’ve been finding podcasts soothing.
(There was a lot of bisexual and Libra slander here.)

Baĝbo: Who is the greatest sound artist of all time?
Khita: Not applicable.
Muthoni: I don’t know if I have the answer to that question. I have people I love not a GOAT.

Baĝbo: So who is your favourite?
Muthoni: In terms of soundscape, I’m obsessed with Nyokabi’s work. In terms of music, I’m currently obsessed with Olivia Dean.
Khita: I’d say apart from the people I’d love to collaborate with (looks at Muthoni), I feel there are so many artists that speak to so many different times especially for my journey as an artist as well. There’s been so many favourites I wouldn’t even want to say who my favourites are because I might leave someone out cause at the moment they are not resonating the way they did but they did bring a lot to the table.

Baĝbo: Audiobooks, hard copies, or e-books?
Both: Hard copy.
Khita: But e-books when it’s absolutely necessary.
Muthoni: Mimi I struggle. If I see one notification when reading, we are done. If I’m listening to an audiobook I’ll zone out and I’ll come back and now we are at page 56 and I don’t know what the fuck is going on.

Baĝbo: Vinyls, CDs, or streaming?
Muthoni: I’d love to record in cassettes. So tapes. And if it wasn’t so environmentally unfriendly, vinyl would be something I listen to.
Khita: Oh my god! That’s my dream. Like vinyl collection of just my favourite arts. Again, just because it is not environmentally friendly and portable. So due to circumstance and portability, online listening.

(Then science geeks showed up.)

Baĝbo: So how much loss has it taken you to get here?
(Inhale, whistle, laugh.)
Khita: How many deaths are agreeable? But we have many lives… I die every few years. I die, mourn my death, bury, and reawaken. Loss is part of the journey.

(The Scorpio darkness walked in.)

Muthoni: It’s taken a lot of loss but like it’s said, evolution requires things to die. It’s the cycle of it, death and rebirth. The thing I’ve lost the most is my dream and what I want out of life has really shifted over time. And my beliefs of the world and of myself.

Baĝbo: From how you’ve said it, so it was worth it?
Khita: Always. Each time. Each time. Honestly, it’s some of the most beautiful things. I feel like there is so much beauty and misunderstanding of the impact and, like, positive transformation that death can bring. I’ve learnt that there is nothing that is ever permanent. And in understanding that life is impermanence. You are able to welcome so much always, which is beautiful.
I’m grateful to die and be reborn again every Sunday.

Baĝbo: What’s your favourite piece of work from yourself?
Khita: For me, my “Attack Decay” release. I’m so in love with that piece. It fills me. Every part of it. So much of what I thought it would be that it wasn’t that it ended up becoming that was even more. I’m so happy and so proud of it. I’d say that and some aspects of Conjunction, especially the conversations within Conjunction.
Muthoni: For me, it is Ciana Cia Mumbi. I poured so much into that thing, so it’s been so amazing to see. Even the way that it came out of me, the way I received it, and then to put it out into the world to see how people are receiving the work and interpreting it. And the little hip-hop things I’ve been putting out feel very me which I love.

(Then fanboing on their voice.)
(I reviewed Muthoni Ni Mimi’s debut EP, Subira, in 2023 for the MWE, and Bakhita’s EP, Purge, for MWE 2024. Again, serendipity.)

Baĝbo: If this was it, what would be the recap?
Muthoni: Reflective Surface.
Khita: Imagined.

Baĝbo: Would you think you’ve done a good job?
Muthoni: Ooh, yes. It is one of those, let me give myself grace. Yes. I’ve done a good job.
Khita: Maahhn, we’ve done everything we can. We fought to be here, we didn’t even think we’d be here. So, we’ve literally done it all but we are not done.

Baĝbo: That’s beautiful. Thank you guys for indulging me.

(Everyone screams and starts asking why I didn’t answer the questions, too.)

“I never want my music to create money. It’s created to be given. An offering.”

***

To commemorate Pride Month 2024, Sanaa kwa Sana and The Bambis collaborate on Uuma fi Uumamtoota, a project that spotlights and celebrates queer and trans artists in Kenya. Uuma fi Uumamtoota is Afaan Oromo for “creator and creation.”