Dj Afro Amigos, a.k.a Kimoda, is arguably the greatest movie commentator in Kenya. During the pre-Netflix era, many Kenyans can recall paying to watch Dj Afro movies in dark video halls.
Afro, whose real name is James Muigai, gained prominence in 2006. He revolutionized the Kenyan movie industry by commentating and translating foreign movies into Kiswahili, gaining massive popularity among movie fans.
However, as is the case for any master, there must be a teacher behind his work. In Dj Afro’s case, that teacher was George Mboya, aka Dj Fish.
In an interview on Churchill show, Dj Fish recounted his journey and how he mentored Dj Afro. This is his story, as told by WoK.
Dj Benje
George Mboya, alias Dj Fish, is the seventh born of a family of 12. He attended Kericho Primary School and is the younger brother to former Shabana FC player Hezekiah Orina.
After completing his high school education around 1998, Mboya moved to Limuru in search of work. He was lucky to land a job as a sweeper in a popular cinema hall at Oakridge Gardens.
Mboya landed his first job as a movie DJ by accident. At that time, movie commentatory involved the DJ sitting next to the tv screen with a microphone and translating whatever was happening to the eager audience seated behind him in benches.
On that day, the regular Dj who was supposed to commentate was absent, and George was told to take his place.
His commentary was well received by fans, to the point that he replaced the other guy as the main Dj. The job paid him sh 800 per month. Fans fondly nicknamed him Dj ‘Benje’, a trending sheng slang at the time.
Due to his popularity, Mboya was poached by another cinema owner and moved to Dagoreti. Here, he was paid higher wages of sh 300 per day.
The cinema audience at Dagoreti comprised mainly of the butchers from surrounding slaughterhouses who usually finished their day’s work by 8 am and spent the rest of the day at cinemas.
Higher wages
Within a short while, the talented Mboya, a.k.a Dj Benje, became so popular that customers from neighboring cinemas switched allegiance to his video store.
Naturally, he was poached to another cinema hall which offered higher wages of sh 420 per day. While there, he discovered a new trick, one which would revolutionize the movie industry in Kenya forever.
Through experimentation, Mboya discovered that he could play a VHS tape containing the movie, record it with another tape, and commentate the movie simultaneously. When the new tape was played, his voice and the movie would play simultaneously.
This new design was conducive to Mboya, as he could now commentate movies from one cinema and sell the recorded tapes to other stores. He switched names from Dj Benje to Dj Fish.
He then seized the business idea and opened the first Dj movie store in Nairobi. Needless to say, the tapes sold like hot cakes.
However, the new way of business became more of a curse than a blessing, as the recorded tapes were highly vulnerable to piracy. Customers would purchase a tape, duplicate it, and sell the duplicates at massive profits.
Although this made him famous, it was bad for business. The rise of DVDs made things worse as those were easier to duplicate than VHS tapes.
Meeting Dj Afro
One day, while Mboya was in his usual business of commentating movies, a stranger entered the cinema and requested to speak with him. He introduced himself as Dj Afro.
He had travelled from Nakuru to learn from Dj Fish how to incorporate his voice into movies. Mboya discouraged him that the business of commentating movies had been ruined by piracy.
However, Afro insisted that he wanted to learn the art. Consequently, Mboya took him through the entire process.
The next day, Afro returned to Nakuru equipped with the skill and poised to become the most popular movie Dj in Kenya.
Netflix Deals
Mboya had been correct in his prediction, as piracy engulfed and wrung all profits from the movie commentatory business. Consequently, he switched careers in 2006 and focused on standup comedy.
That same year, he met Daniel Ndambuki, who would later revolutionize the Kenyan comedy industry as Churchill.
In 2020, he was contracted by Rembo tv as a movie Dj and later by Netflix. His son Leone is currently a student of film and television in Russia. His passion is to become an actor.
