Curtain falls on Joseph Kamaru's dramatic musical journey

On his death bed at MP Shah Hospital, veteran musician, John Joseph Kamaru’s prayer was that God grants him more years on earth to hit his target age of 120. It was not to be so as his curtain came down on Wednesday at around 8pm at the age of 79.

“I know my health is failing me, but I retain hope that God is going to grant me good health and see me through to equal the Biblical Moses full cycle. There is so much I feel I owe the music industry and my community,” he had told the Business Daily weeks before his demise.

He leaves behind two orphaned sons following the death of their mother, the Reverend Teresiah Kamaru in 2017. Being married to religious leader, it was unsurprising when in 2009 he announced that he had accepted Jesus Christ as his saviour and followed the new step of fail by establishing his church at Nairobi’s Tea Room.

Kamaru’s legacy is deeply embedded in the political and social spheres of life where he had cut for himself an oracle figure.

From the Jomo Kenyatta administration all through to the current Uhuru Kenyatta government, Mr Kamaru was a common feature in the corridors of State House where he was often consulted on how to make political inroads in the vote rich Mt Kenya region. For his years rubbing shoulders with the political elite, he benefited immensely financially.

He was, for instance, the sole entertainer in Uhuru’s wedding in 1991, a performance he said earned him Sh3 million, by no means a small amount today, much less in the 90s when the economy was in a poor state.

Besides that occasion, he was also part of former President Daniel Moi’s entourage to Japan in 1980.

Mr Kamaru, popularly known as Kamaru wa Wanjiru, currently holds the record of the most recorded artiste in the music industry with an estimated 3,000 tracks to his credit in his 52-year music career.

As his fans continue to mourn him, his rich heritage in the industry will remain their consolation where his tracks have managed to retain that rare evergreen trait.

Among those who have send their condolences are President Uhuru Kenyatta, his deputy William Ruto and a horde of other politicians.

Kiambu Governor, Ferdinand Waititu said that the legend had been a critical pillar in Central Kenya politics.

“I can freely admit that we had recruited him into our 2022 project of selling DP Ruto to inherit State House. He was our ambassador who was going to influence friendly music to be recorded in favour of Ruto,” he said.

The political establishment was so vested in him that when Kamaru was admitted in hospital in July, both Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto summoned former Starehe MP, Maina Kamanda and gave him the mandate of seeing to it that the old musician got all the support he required as he received treatment.

Kamaru’s maxim was “tell the truth and shame the devil”. It was therefore not surprising that his music career was not without drama.

He got himself in political trouble during the late senior Kenyatta and Daniel Moi regimes, not forgetting the acrimonious heat he generated within the teaching fraternity in 1966 when he debuted with the track “Ndari ya Mwarimu (Teacher’s darling.”)

In the song, Kamaru had claimed some teachers were engaging in romantic relationships with their pupils and awarding them “sexually transmitted pass marks” in return.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) felt insulted and to show their displeasure called for a national strike.

They were only pacified when the late Jomo Kenyatta intervened and convinced the teachers to resume work, but they only did so on condition that all teachers blacklist Kamaru’s songs and never buy his tracks.

“This ban gave me a lot of mileage in the country and I was approached by many people to interpret the song for them. My status rose so rapidly within my Agikuyu community and that track hit a record 600,000 sales by 1967,” Kamaru had told the Business Daily.

During the Madaraka Day celebrations of 1992, at Kasarani Stadium, Kamaru told former Mr Moi to his face that he had run out of popularity and announced that his time to exit power was near.

Then there is the unforgettable debacle in 1975 that he got himself into with the Kenyatta administration when he accused the centre of power of murdering Nyandarua fiery politician, Josiah Mwangi Kariuki.

In 2006, Kamaru set up a recording studio, which he used to assist many broke greenhorns in the industry.

He was born in Kangema Constituency and bought land and built in Kigumo Constituency all in Murang’a County. He received little education owing to poverty.

When he travelled to Nairobi in 1953 as a 14-year old boy, he started hawking assorted pesticides before he was employed as a house boy by a white couple that resided at Kenya High, in 1957.