‘Remember the model Naomi Campbell and Charles Taylor’s diamonds?’
I got to writing when I got home — it was a war between my imagination, drunkenness and tiredness, and an intensity that wanted more than it could have. In my write-up, I lied. I had to lie in order to be able to tell the whole story:
Sex, Drugs and Rock-and-Roll Tizita
At the popular white-and-black bourgeoisie Norfolk Hotel, a secret competition was held away from the eyes of you, the common Kenyan. It started off as a simple affair, a competition to find out who amongst top Ethiopian musicians could give the best rendition of the Tizita, a popular song over there. But, according to our whistle-blower account, once soon-to-be named Kenyan tycoons got wind of it, they decided to open up the competition to all musicians, and what was supposed to be a story about trying to find the soul in music became one of corruption, sex and drugs….
And it went on. The ‘secret’ competition was then opened up so as to find the best singer in the world. World-famous musicians, out of boredom and love of music, decided to join the competition. And because the winner would not be announced to the world, bragging rights alone were not a believable reward, and so I threw in ten million dollars.
I added, Remember all the Western celebrities who like to hang out with corrupt fat cats? Who perform in the palaces and homes of the powerful? Remember the model Naomi Campbell and Charles Taylor’s diamonds?
Into this mix I threw The Diva — she especially could lend herself well to the glamorous competition, and in my write-up I photoshopped her to perfection with my pen. The Taliban Man also came out well — a Tupac, the NIC of the Tizita. The Corporal had been marched into the competition by an entourage of several soldiers; while Miriam, the sleeper Tizita musician, turned out to be from a long line of Senegalese griots who found herself born in Ethiopia because her parents had dared question the wisdom of Leopold Senghor and were promptly exiled. I turned Mr. Selassie into a suave Don King of all things illicit who had finally found the love of his life in the Tizita, injecting a bit of myself in his story.
And the judges? I hinted at a sleazy Saudi Prince who could not keep his hands off Alicia Keys. My Bill Clinton was with a young, blonde woman chewing on an unlit cigar that she would later that night stick up his ass. My Mo Ibrahim, the telecommunications guru who buys and finances presidencies, had a serious gambling problem.
But the description of the Tizita was honest, same as I have already told you: the emotions welling up in the audience as Miriam took to the stage and all the other musicians coming out to support her and to be part of her magic.
AND THE WINNER IS…. I ended the story with a cliff hanger.
My story ran one week later. For the first time in its history, The National Inquisitor, like a sold-out bestseller, went into a second printing. By mid-afternoon, people were calling The National Inquisitor asking when the next competition was going to be and if we could run a profile of the musicians beforehand. Sister tabloids in Britain and the US picked up the story. The musicians from America I had named sent in their denials. Perfect. More credibility! The advertisers were tripping over themselves. By the end of the week, I had a plane ticket to Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa, and a company credit card. I was to file a profile each week and do the write-up for the next and final competition.
There was one slight problem with my plan though — my Tizita musicians would read my story. And no talk about naked hearts and translation of the spirit would matter. I was ready. I would summon my inner Achebe and say, ‘There is no story that is not true.’ And hadn’t The Corporal said all songs are true? I believed in the story, and as long as they saw that, the lies making the story possible would not matter. We performed to tell the truth. We would carry on.
***
On the evening before I left for Addis, Alison invited me to an expat party at an Ethiopian restaurant called The Nile-Not. By expat, I mean that it was like an Ethiopian restaurant in Boston — watered-down food for delicate white palates made by a white chef who had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia, and served by white waiters. I admit to exaggerating a little bit for effect — the waiters were black. More often in American-Ethiopian restaurants, the waiters were white college students, the chef Ethiopian and the owner a white businessman who was never seen. Here in Nairobi, the waiters and the chefs and the dishwashers and the greeter and watchman at the door were all black. The Nile-Not white owner announced himself by the way he greeted everyone and the way he casually got a drink from the small bar and patted the black waiters on the back and backside.
The doro wot was so watered down that I gladly insulted the chef by adding copious amounts of salt and black pepper. The injera was a cross between thinly sliced bread and a chapati, none of the tangy sponginess that soaked up the goodness of the sauce. Going to the bathroom, I was mistaken for a waiter… and the indignities went on. You know how in America those in the know say there is no Chinese food in China? That Chinese food in the United States is not the Chinese food in China? But I still had booze. No worries, I told myself. What more could go wrong?
A Tizita karaoke night! When I heard the sound of the krar, for a moment I thought there was a live performer, and I kissed Alison to say thank you. Then theatre lights came on, and for the first time, I saw the stage with a microphone and karaoke monitors. Young European bohemians by night and NGO workers by day, one after the other, took to the stage and sang nightmarish District 9 Tizita. Some simply mouthed the words they were reading on the monitor while others sang their own versions of the Tizita in English. Amusing, until one American dude went Janis Joplin on his English Tizita.
‘What the fuck are we doing here? Why did you bring me here?’ I asked Alison. She knew about the ABC and what I was trying to do — why this caricature of my work?
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, smiling.
I stood up to leave in meaningless protest. She was driving. I sat back down, my face saved by the arrival of my beer.
‘They too have stories. I wanted you to see that — a story can be in what you do not know, right?’ Alison said as she leaned in closer.
She was right, of course, but their expat stories were not for my pen.
We stayed for a while, went to my place all fucked up. She watched me pack, and then guiltily, or perhaps out of obligation, we had sex and slept.