The Churchill Mandela Effect – A Resurrector of Careers, Scar Mkadinali
“The Mandela Effect is a psychological phenomenon where many people share a false memory of a specific fact or event, despite the evidence to the contrary”
Scar Mkadinali is not just an artist, he is not just a businessman, he is the business, man. Some of these deals are publishing deals with Zozanation, in all honesty, he knows what he is doing.
Born Churchill Mandela, Scar Mkadinali is a third of the much successful hip-hop trio, Wakadinali. Revered for his exceptional lyrical dexterity, intricate and often multi-layered rhyme schemes, and compelling narrative capabilities, Scar's artistry provides a raw and unfiltered lens into the hustle of being a Kenyan youth from Eastlands. His music revolves around pressing social issues, offering insightful commentary on the challenges and triumphs of an everyday Kenyan youth, while also drawing from his own personal experiences to create relatable and impactful music. It would easily be argued that Scar is the biggest rap star in Kenya from the latter half of the 2010s. Please note the use of preposition “In” and not “from”
Since their emergence onto the scene, Wakadinali have cultivated a significant and dedicated fanbase within the Kenyan hip-hop fraternity; they are a cult. I have been a fan for close to a decade now, and I can say with the utmost bias that Wakadinali are the best hip-hop group to ever hail from Kenya.
(Read an Article I wrote about Wakadinali I wrote for HipHop Africa here.)
As usual and as enthusiasts of the queen’s language said, heavy is the head that carries the crown. With great power, Wakadinali have had to bear great responsibility; they have had to revive and amplify the careers of a few artists. To them it’s business as usual, but to the artist on the receiving end, this is a lifeline, a siphon of hope from the Wakadinali fountain. None of the three has suffered this fate more than Churchill Mandela. In this article I will highlight artists whose careers were saved by Wakadinali with Scar Mkadinali as the Pastor Nganga, Chief General Commander (man I love Pastor Ng’ang’a)
King Kaka is just bored with money to waste; his rap career years are well behind him and it’s like he is in denial. His executive production career, though, is just hitting off the ground because he has the cashflow. As he reflects back on his career, he has achieved it all; why he still insists on rapping like a thug is beyond me, he is not that guy anymore. Fluent Trauma is not a bad project, but all the parts King Kaka has rapped could be removed, and it wouldn’t change the nature of the songs. I guess that is the fluent trauma. Scar Mkadinali has owned that project; whatever the arrangement, I know for a fact it is King Kaka paying for these services and that puts him on the underhand. Scar is helping him seem relevant, and it is working.
Released in July 2022, Chonjo was a collaborative album between Wangechi and Scar Mkadinali. Wangechi has been in the game for quite a minute; she is a legendary femcee in the hip-hop circles and in the industry as a whole, a source of inspiration for young women interested in the creative industry. Truth be told, she wasn’t proactive before that album, and she has not been proactive after it either. This Mandela collabo was a revival for Wangechi; truth be told, this was when Scar was really hitting it off commercially, a win-win situation in my books.
Escobar is a zozanation masterpiece, no pun intended; everything about that album screams zozanation. Even before the album, Masterpiece was galavanting in Umoja, hanging around dudes he had no business hanging out with. A former gospel child star, he evolved to be everything he was not supposed to, but music is art, and art, well, art has no religion. With tracks like “Utaniget”, “AirBNB”, “Kichwa Mbaya”, and “Guza Umbwa”, to name just a few that have come after his backsliding, it is evident Masterpiece is riding on a Wakadinali wave. Whether he can tame the wave and surf the murky waters of rap is a matter of perspective. I wish him the best of luck; he needs it.
I was very excited for this particular project because I got to experience Kitu Sewer, a legend in the Kenyan music scene and the hip-hop culture in specificity. This was a Mkadinali before Wakadinali; I was craving that era of music, and Zozanation delivered on it. This arrangement was understandable since Kitu Sewer doesn’t really have the ears of the newer generation nor the numbers to pull a release like this one alone. This was definitely a publishing deal, one that probably paid off for both parties; only insiders would know.
Anyway, my point is, in those few words, Scar Mkadinali is a force to be reckoned with, musically and business-wise. I doubt there is a single artist in Kenya who has been more involved in more tracks than Scar Mkadinali in the last 5 years, inclusive of features. He has cracked the code of being a crackhead with a business acumen; even if you hate the man, you can only hate the game, not the player.
