Ginger! ooh! ginger!..ginger ooh ginger... This word ginger...Everytime I hear it, its the wizkid song that comes to mind...and then I fell in love with other songs...now whenever I hear this word its the biscuits that come to mind. (Feel free to think about the spice too). The thing I love about this biscuits though, is not the colour of the packaging, the shape or the thickness...its the taste, the bittersweet chilli-like taste, that's what makes me salivate.
Recently, I have been getting a lot of pressure from literally everything but social media tops them all. You see, I am a journalism major in campus and the kenyan media houses (our supossed workplaces) are chasing after views ofcourse with a little bit of talent. The people I looked upto got fired, that leaves me mentorless but mostly clueless. The worst thing is that, my career could be declared redundant in the near future.
I don't have my degree yet so I hope and pray schools open soon so we can all resume normalcy. The question that haunts me is, what do we do in the meantime? It was relaxing at first, (the break from school) then it got funny now its becoming unbearable. And with people making 10 second videos, trending on twitter and finally all media houses come knocking at their doors doesn't make it any easier. I will be honest, it makes me feel wasted, like I made the wrong choice. I mean even a kid would get it, what's the point of dedicating four years of your life for a career that could literally take seconds to build?
People who have met the goofy side of me keep bugging me with thoughts of scandalising myself or 'kutafuta kiki' as my friend Tumaini would put it...all in the name of views which would later transform to a career. Sounds easy right?? I also know about the famous publicity line 'no publicity is bad publicity' , after all what could possibly go wrong?
Here is what could go wrong...the publicity could either get you there or get you cancelled... Secondly, it ends...tommorow someone else will be popular, take for instance Ethic the gengeton group...they started out well... But the crowds are listening to the likes of kahush now, and do realise we have never stopped listening to sautisol..notice the difference? No?..let me explain.
Its all in the grit, your hardwork and success go hand in hand...The goal should not be instant gratification...because time is also an investment. Most of us give up before we even start because we are competing with instafamous individuals who are already making money and that is what kills us.
Understand that it has been done before but not by you. Also understand that those people you see, admire or even loathe have probably been putting in the work behind the scenes and its their winning season. How many videos did you think Azziad had put out before the utawezana one? How many songs have sautisol put out? OG jones himself says he had put out almost a 100 songs before his actual breakthrough. How many videos did flaqo put out?...I could go on and on. Are you putting your best foot forward?
Today I saw a post on Larry madowo bagging a new job at BBC.. even after after a year of taking a break from his career. I am not even going to go to the details of how long Larry has been at it .Understand that you are you and that's your super power.
Back to the ginger biscuits, the sweetness is in the bitterness, the gratification is in the pain, the satisfaction is in the climb the hours put in and the effort. I am not saying we all have to go through the toiling process, by any means if you can get there faster please do.