Interview: Mildred Achoch and Orlando Greenhill of Black History of Rock n Roll

On 18th November 2023, I had the great honour of being interviewed by Orlando Greenhill of Black History of Rock n Roll. Below is the transcript of the first few minutes.

0:01:46 – Mildred Achoch

I got into rock music through country music. My dad had an amazing record collection with the usual: Elvis Presley, Charlie Pride, Skeeter Davis. And then, around 1998, this radio station FM radio station the first ever in Kenya opened and then it just introduced us to a whole new world of rock. It was soft rock, it was more pop, but I mean, for someone who had never experienced this kind of music, I found it amazing. You know, bands like U2, all those great 90s bands. 

 (NOTE: Capital FM begun in 1996)

And then, around 2004, I started a Yahoo group. Remember Yahoo? Yeah, I started a Yahoo group called Kenya Rocks because I just wanted to connect with other people who like rock music. I thought I was the only one in this country who loved rock music, because that time the Internet was very new and so we were not connected to each other. So I started that Yahoo group and, slowly by slowly, I got to know other rock fans in Kenya. Many of them actually went on to form bands.

 

 

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I must give a shout out to Rash. It's a band that came much later, in 2013, but they're celebrating their 10th anniversary today. They're actually having a show as we speak. So hi, Rash, congratulations! In that Yahoo group there were also members of Murfy’s Flaw, Last Year's Tragedy. Last Year’s Tragedy are also performing at that Rash show today. 

 

And then 2008, Facebook. We all decided to go over to Facebook and so I stopped, you know, the Yahoo group. I was also going through some life changes, so I stopped the Yahoo group. But then at that time I had already gotten this idea for a film festival that showcased rock music so that's how ROFFEKE came about. It's rock and roll film festival Kenya, but I pronounce it Rafiki, and the mission is just to promote rock music in Kenya via film. Because I love film. I am actually a screenwriter by profession and I love rock music. So it was just natural to combine the two. And that's what I've been doing for the past - is it 10, 15 years? I enjoy it, it's a passion. I'm not making loads of money out of this, I'm just passionate about it. And now I'm intentionally concentrating more about educating people that, you know, rock music is not mzungu music. Mzungu is Swahili for white man.

                            The African Roots of Rock 'n' Roll - A poem by Diego Serebrennik
 

0:05:44

It's still a difficult thing to convince people of because the media just shows the white side of rock music. So when you tell someone, no, no, it came from black gospel music and blues, people don't really connect easily, but it's just a passion of mine. I enjoy history and music history also. So I'll just keep on doing it. I'll keep on doing it as long as I can because I love it. 

                Kenya Taifu Letu (Kenya Our Country) composed by Gideon Victor Mwanyigha
 

0:09:07

We are also dealing with the effects of colonialism. We were colonized by the British so anything that remotely smells of the white man is usually not accepted readily by some people.

I always say, you don't have to like rock music. You're actually free to hate rock music, but please hate it for the right reasons. Just hate it because you don't like it. Don't hate it because you think it's white man's music or because it's the devil's music or because it's just noise. Those are wrong reasons. Hate it because it's not your preference. That's a very valid reason not to like rock music.

So yeah, it's an uphill task but I enjoy it. I learn something new every day. There’s so much history that I don't know. I thought I knew but I clearly don't know. And when I check out some of your posts I realize that well, I mean, it could not be helped because we only had access to corporate media and we only heard what was in corporate media. But I like what you're doing because I get to learn about all these other black bands. I saw a very recent post, I think you posted it today, about a black glam rock band. I did not know that there was such a band in that particular genre. Yeah, it's always fun to find out these things. Not to get too philosophical but I think part of it is healing for us who were colonized and slave trade and all that stuff. I think it's a healing process just to find out that this beautiful music, this powerful music, we had something to do with it. In my opinion, I think it's very healing.

(Transcript generated by Podium.page, edited by Mildred Achoch)

You can watch the entire interview HERE