writer · photographer · nairobi
i pay attention. things escalate
- the sentence has to earn its keep.
- the photograph owes the person in it.
- strategy should survive contact with people.
- yes, there is usually a longer answer
selected writing
begin wherever you disagree.
- language and powerI'm Kenyan. I Don't Write Like ChatGPT. ChatGPT Writes Like Me.the defining essay - on Kenyan English, colonial education, and who gets to sound human.
- grief and memoryI just realised that adulthood is a never-ending exercise in grief management.three RIP posts before morning tea, a father, a school uniform, and grief as the work of repair.
- culture and workThe Showman's Proof.what one Nairobi residency revealed about the invisible labour that lets culture become infrastructure.
- public lifeThe Pan-Africanism of it all.a visiting president, a borrowed politics, and the people required to remember what the room would rather forget.
selected photographs
people. places. proof i left the house.
the shared practice
other people’s lives are not raw material.
At Recentred Africa, I design listening and narrative work that has to survive more than a slide deck. Najali began with a baseline attitudinal study and eight focus-group discussions in Kibera and Mathare - before anybody decided what the public message should be.
how the work joins up →the working life
radio host. agency strategist. BCC practitioner. photographer. Story Lead. apparently I believe in the long route.
follow the through-line →this man’s mind.