By Prudence Minayo
Female hip hop artists are far spaced in Kenya but the few who have taken up this genre are proving to be as good as their male counterparts. Bey T is one such multi-talented songwriter, singer, dancer and rapper whose music has been well received across the country. The artist has released hits after hits with easy to flow lyrics garnering a sizable fan base in the process. She got the chance to work with Kenya’s arguably best hip hop artist Khaligraph Jones. She has 16 videos on her YouTube channel and over 61,000 subscribers.
Age and Background
Fatuma, popularly known as Bet T, was born in 1999.
The artist is of Kenyan, Eritrean and Ethiopian descent. She grew up partly in Kenya and in the United States. As a young girl, she loved music and was a great fan of American Idol, an American singing competition television series. After watching the show, she would perform songs for her parents, and that’s how her passion for music grew.
“I realized I had that passion for singing first before I got into songwriting,” she said.
After mastering the art of singing, she then got into songwriting.
Music Career
She fell in love with the poetry of rap and this inspired her to venture into the genre. Fans loved her flow and this kept her moving. Her most famous hits include: Bad Bad, Face Time, Just Admit It, Wololo, Run It Back and If They Dunno.
Kenyans noticed her when she was featured in Khali Cartel 3.
In 2018, she was picked to represent Kenya at EmPawa Africa mentorship program ‘boot camp’ which was held in South Africa courtesy of Nigerian star Mr. Eazi. The program’s main aim was to support upcoming African musicians and she was among the finalists. This made her see that her work and talent was appreciated by people around the world.
Beef with Tanasha Donna
In 2019, she beefed with media personality and singer Tanasha Donna over the tagline Kenya to the World. She claimed Tanasha’s music was trash and she cared nothing about the Kenyan music industry, adding that her venture into music was for selfish reasons. She even released a diss track called Don to the Donna.
“Someone tell Tanasha Donna to stop wave riding. It’s about clout chasers using the phrase when in reality they don’t give a f*** about the Kenyan music scene or the Kenyan music industry,” wrote Bey T.
In response to the diss track, Tanasha said,” I hear they wrote me a whole love letter. I’m flattered.”