Spoon scratching: Kenya’s DIY DJ

NAIROBI: A spoon, some towel hooks, a piece of kettle and a plastic cap – that’s all you’ll need to make a mixing deck if you have the technical and musical skills of DJ Boboss.

The 27-year-old – real name Paul Mwangi – has been building up a fanbase online and on the streets of Kenya with the one-of-a-kind deck that he put together himself.

It has even earned him slots at Uganda’s Nyege Nyege festival, the largest in east Africa, and on the world-renowned club website Boiler Room.

But his favourite venue is Nairobi’s bustling business district, where he set up on a recent Saturday among the stands of miraa (khat) vendors, the smell of grilled corn and the horns of matatus, the colourful minibuses of the Kenyan capital.

In a few minutes, dozens of curious onlookers had gathered, taking out their phones to film the amazing machine that spits out reggae hits. The mixing desk consists of a spray-painted wooden board on which are screwed towel racks, switches and printed circuits connected in a tangle of cables – all connected to an amp, speaker, and car battery.

He scratches using a slider made from a magnetised spoon between two towel hooks, and his fader is cobbled together from a plastic bottle cap.

Fixes are done without breaking the flow – at one point, DJ Boboss whips out a screwdriver, strips a wire with his teeth and repairs a fault while the music keeps playing.

‘Make my own’

“I’ve never seen anything like that in the world,” smiled David Meshack, who works in a nearby electronics store that sells professional turntables.

“One day, a customer came in with a photo of it. He wanted the same one but I didn’t know what it was,” he said. “Today, I see it!”

Boboss is an acronym for “Be your own boss” and Mwangi got his start repairing radios.

“My dad bought me a radio. After some time it stopped ‘talking’ and he said he wouldn’t buy another one. I was stressed because I was addicted to music and listening to radio, so I just opened it using a knife,” he said.

Soon he was repairing electronic devices in his village near Meru in central Kenya.

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Then one day he saw a DJ in a bar and was inspired.

“I loved how he played music and the way the crowd reacted. I didn’t have the money to buy real equipment but I said I could make my own with the available resources.”

Mwangi moved to the capital and now makes a living from his DJing and occasionally selling specially-commissioned turntables.

His favourite venue is the street, especially in the business district or at Gikomba, the largest second-hand clothing market in the country.

“Street shows is a special feeling, you have a contact with the people. Many people have never seen a DJ mixing live,” he said.

Among the onlookers, 48-year-old ex-soldier Zachary Mibei said he loved how Mwangi illustrates the situation for young people in Kenya.

“He has no training, it’s all homemade, he is showing that he has something in him. He is telling us: ‘I can do it by myself’,” said Mibei.

Boboss admits it is probably time for a more advanced turntable with a few extra functions, but does not plan to part with the one which has made him famous.

“We could combine both and see what we can do with them,” he smiled.