Nkatha Gatuma: Press

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Singer Nkatha not deterred by sour notes.

By Optimistic. This is how 30-year-old Nkatha Gatuma describes herself. And the trait has proved useful in helping her achieve a dream she has held on to from childhood.

Growing up in Tigania, Meru and Nairobi’s Westlands estate, she dreamt of being a singer, and two decades later, she has become a recording and performing gospel singer/songwriter in the United States of America with two albums to her name.

The first being He is Able and the second titled Siku Njema, which has sold exceptionally well in the competitive American market. “My second album can only be termed a blessing,” she said.

Musical journey

However, her musical journey to the recording studio hit a few sour notes before finally taking off. “The biggest hurdle was my parents. They are typical Kenyans for whom success comes after pursuing a particular career and it was hard to convince them otherwise,” she said.

“In me they saw a banker or an IT specialist ... but I knew I would be more comfortable wearing headphones with a microphone in front of me than staring at strategic business plans sprawled on a mahogany desk,” Ms Gatuma said.

She was born in Tigania Mission Hospital in Meru to a military father who served in the army for 30 years and a mother who was a teacher for 28 years.

“For my parents, education came first, and I had to go through it to get to where I wanted to be in life. It was the best decision, plus I still got to dabble in music, which I did after getting a job in the US with Heifer International,” she said.

Her job with the charity organisation stirred up in her a new calling and allowed her to realise her childhood dream. Heifer International introduced her to a side of life she did not know existed in the US.

“I came face to face with people who suffered in ways I never imagined. In the beginning I thought that as someone from Africa I had seen it all,” she said.

But she was wrong. Images of starving women and children begging for assistance still haunt her. “I wept when I saw people struggling to get water, food and shelter and decided to do more.”

With a group of friends, she started an organisation around where she lives to assist communities that face social injustices and suffering. “Our work has received community support because we are people who understand suffering because we have gone through the same struggles,” said Ms Gatuma.

Interlude

Life as a humanitarian was not easy as the day-to-day images she had of the world weighed her down. “But music presented an interlude to rather depressing days. Music notes, lyrics and tunes were always an avenue through which I would escape to a little world of my own,” she says.

And so she looked for and found a studio to record in. “In America, if one is talented, one gets the recognition one deserves unlike back in Kenya where many talented artistes don’t not make it,” she said. Further, she said, the US presents a level of music recording she could not find back home.

Her second album was recorded in Boston and mastered in New York and it cost her almost Sh1.5 million, but it is paying off.

And though she has settled in well in the States and is grateful for the opportunities that have come her way, her voice occasionally cracks as she recounts some of her fond memories of Kenya, betraying a heart aching for home.

“I left as the only daughter of a teacher and an army man. I will come back as a musician and humanitarian and hopefully spread the knowledge I have gained,” she said.

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