Mugithi, decoded
One voice, one guitar, and a whole room holding each other by the waist. Here's what mugithi actually is, where it came from, and why it's having a new moment.
If you've been to a Kikuyu wedding, a ruracio or a Friday night at the right bar, you've seen it. The guitarist starts a familiar tune, someone grabs the person in front of them by the hips, and within a minute the whole room is moving in one long line. That's mugithi.
The wordIt means “train”
Mugithi is the Gikuyu word for a train, and the name comes from the dance. Audiences form a line, each person holding the hips of the one in front, and snake around the venue together, following the singer's lead.
Where it came fromThe bar, the budget, the guitar
Mugithi grew up in Kikuyu bars. As club owners looked to cut costs, they swapped full bands for a single performer who could sing and play guitar at the same time. The format stuck, and the one-man guitarist became the sound of the genre.
The songs are sung in Gikuyu, and they cover the big moments of life, from marriage and birth to coming of age, along with plenty of social commentary. The one-man guitarists, as Mike Murimi has put it, are the ones who turned mugithi into a craze, and it lasts because it takes people back to their roots.
The keepersBringing the classics back
Mugithi's biggest stars have also been its historians. The late Salim Junior became a household name partly by reviving Kikuyu hits from decades earlier and covering them for a new generation. Artists like Mike Rua and Mike Murimi carried the sound through the bars, weddings and celebrations where it still lives today.
The new momentSame train, new tracks
A younger generation is now taking mugithi out of the bar and onto bigger stages. Ayrosh, who headlines Flavor Artist Live on Saturday 28 November, blends it with R&B, soul, Afro-house and even EDM, and calls his take on it futuristic. The roots are obvious. The production isn't what your parents danced to.
So when the guitar starts at the show, you'll know what to do. Find someone, hold on, and join the train.