 you welcome back to the show this is why 254 channel in particular why in the morning now I don't know if you know but we just had a very interesting conversation with Stephanie Ayeta on mental health and I will small borrow from that in my first introduction but before we get any further do you know how to interact with us at 254 Facebook why 254 channel on Twitter why 254 underscore channel on the gram hashtag of the day is why in the morning I think it's a very beautiful day to be alive very good day to be six feet above the ground do you agree all right I like that let's interact but before we continue I want my guests introduce themselves and then we get in to the meat of the conversation why is it meat maybe they know hi how are you do you know hi the high was for everyone let's do this again take two this direction you looked there so that was his hi I have corrected myself very good maybe let's start with you I like your hair thank you I great myself very proud of you you clearly do a good job years of practice I can see you're doing a very very good job thank you very much there's someone who's saying from my team very able team they like everything about you so you might have to have several conversations after this science and autographs and hey now make a son of baby please introduce yourself to my name is Kefue Kefue Karita I am a storyteller at heart but I do a lot of other things yes and I was the director for the rough he's very brief but he does a lot of amazing things which we will get into in a little bit and who are you sir I go by the name Tom Payne singer a creative and season one the rough winner I'm so humbled by it by the way and I think I just love the idea of reinvention for me like it's it's everything for me so whenever you talk about reinvention I'm interested yeah we'll get to what reinvention means to you but before we continue I want us to borrow a leaf from the conversation that was just happening with again Stephanie Ayeta so it was based on mental health and in the beginning in the binging when we're having a conversation as three hosts in the introduction Brian Sako 101 at Stephanie Ayeta Brian asked us how we maintain mental health balance what do you do for you to make sure you're okay and not just okay that we can see oh they look good oh you know are you truly okay can you be in your own personal space by yourself can you stand the sound of your own voice in your head what do you do for you why look at each other you know as a very kind gentleman I insist on letting others go fast but because you want to look like you want to gather your thoughts I would even kinder how do I maintain or rather how do I balance out mental health for myself it's a journey because they you can't really say that you will ever at any point of life have it figured out it's just that consistent balance of okay today morning I woke up and I did not feel like leaving the vicinity of my bed other days I'm like I'm ready to capture the moon the thing is to always be genuine with at least yourself you can put on a brief face for the rest of the world but you need to at the bare minimum be able to understand where you are at each day because that way you you can't take you can't deal with a problem if you don't acknowledge the problem so I would say for me what I try to do as much as possible is acknowledge I am okay or I'm not okay that would be the bare minimum about to spare me with content but no no no no no well for me think the concept is showing yourself more grace we talk about grace and we talk about showing people grace but we never talk about showing ourselves grace when we fall short when we miss the mark I feel most of the times I depressed cause of one factor either we feel we're not good enough either we feel maybe and we failed to attain some standard which you feel like we should attain but in my opinion I think apart from just showing yourself love I'm at the good times and things are really working for you I feel like you need to be also able to show yourself love and grace even when you fall short even when you're not at your best you know need to be gracious enough to just give yourself room to to grow and to learn from the mistakes you know that we make in life so whether this morning you woke up and you feel like you're not in the mood as he says I feel like you need to show yourself grace and you need to be able to just love yourself too much to understand that you're just human yeah and come on because one of them is supposed to cry you're supposed to yeah so how do you and especially in a competitive arena like the rough how did that work out for you well as the rough winner he's very interested in that yes yes as the rough winner as you like that is really too much like winning because you know clearly like the spotlight hits you and then that's when you wake up and you realize okay everyone is looking up to me that's when you get back home and then you get those type of messages like hey are you really inspire me you know yeah I need you as a coach I'm like hey I'm still children yeah you know I'm still growing in this thing but it's too much pressure but how I usually handle it is I I think there's always two sides of the coin I believe there's always two sides so it depends with how you're going to look at the whole situation so you're gonna look at it from a positive angle or a negative one so me being me always choose the positive side of everything even when things don't make sense I try to make sense out of everything you know so even as a man you know like things are tough but I'm like you know it's okay to cry it's okay but I'm not gonna cry you know I'm gonna do it alone I'm not gonna do it do you imagine that we don't cry this might continue for a time now before maybe let me tell you a secret there is and I'm going to say it out loud because I just think it in my head but I never take it out from my mental space there is there's an award or they win awards so I don't know how to English is not is failing me small kid don't go but that the point is the winners win awards but the organizers don't ever really get the kind of love that's for example Tom Payne is Tom Payne now you know he's the winner of the but where is the love for the people who came together and and created the space for Tom Payne to come audition in and actually thrive there's a whole team so there's this Femma awards and everyone is always clapping hands for Femma award winners but I get so upset because Nick's the president is the CEO president of the actual Femma awards and he's hardly ever recognized and that annoys me a little bit does it annoy you so I'll possibly give the example that a photographer would give it's my pleasure is in taking the photo not being in the photo and perhaps sometimes as an organizer that's a best mentality to have when you're preparing something my joy my joy in making the rough was not being recognized or being in the credits or all of that it was being on the journey that allowed these guys to shine because my desire while going through the rough wasn't okay now this is going to secure for me 15 other jobs where people will recognize me and I'll continue to shine and my Twitter will blow up anything like that it was I want to put together a show that people will enjoy as they watch and the participants who get to be on it will be able to get a platform to grow and hone and further their craft I don't like the limelight per se and because I'm I can stop I can survive I can thrive in it I can do my thing in the limelight but my my thing with this project or like when you're an organizer if you want the limelight then you will create your the organizer there'll be a segment where let us bring on board Mukubwa who has done this fantastic thing you organized it you but if it's genuinely for the people who are watching and who are participating then enjoy that part for what it is yeah okay now to maybe cross your journeys when you saw him auditioning for the first time did you imagine or did you see him winning it did you see nothing look at not all he's very interested as well this one is for you upon request I didn't care and I don't know if that sounds bad but we've had conversations with Tom through the journey and anytime we talk I tell him whether you win or not is never going to be the point of this it's always going to be going any stage that you get on do your best when you're on that stage kill it when you're on that stage and live that stage without any regrets so and that's what I told to any participant who asked me throughout the process that one for did you make it just to the auditions or did you make it to the semi-finals doesn't matter what level you made it at did the if you did your best no one can hold that against you and that should be enough for you to grow from where you are at now yeah so did I know that he was going to win I had no idea but I wasn't focused on who was going to win I was just there for how can I help these guys bring out their their best and I am aware that the tagline kind of that is attached to the rough is finding talent and inspiring passion yes why that particular phase so we started it the project started out with a gist of there's a lot of talent across the nation and primarily the target was in the youth 18 to 24 but a lot of that is essentially pushed down to you do that one later you first focus on going through school getting your degree getting a 8 to 5 job I know I'm not a struggle I've been in it so they are what I want they identify talent was to help people identify that thing within them and put a prize pool to tease them to be like you could win so why don't you try this thing that you're interested in and the inspire passion was the spiritual element of it and the talent element of it so inspire people's passion to pursue what they have within them and their relationship with the Heavenly Father is it solely Christian content let me phrase it like that yes yes the show so the show was based on Christian principles so it's not that it was only Christian talent but no it wasn't only Christian talent but it was designed with that element of inspiring the Christian element or the spiritual pursuit how do you where do you fall in that town would you say that yes you're a Christian and you only make Christian and him to a gospel and there's a kind of pressure for honestly for gospel artists I feel because there's no society we don't give them room to make mistakes so if something that if a mistake is made by a gospel artist and someone else makes the same mistake who is not in the that car brackets it's it's such a big deal it's news we've posted everywhere now we are shaming this person for getting that Christian the point is first of all love your neighbors you love yourself and forgiveness forgiveness and mercy yeah his grace are new every morning I'm Bible yeah so where do you fall in that number I'll start from my art or how I approach music I approach it from a point of authenticity so if my art is not authentic number one it's going to be terrible if my performance is not authentic it's going to be terrible again so where I fall in the category as the rough was spiritual or probably Christian centered is that I number one born and raised in a Christian family I won't deny that so already while I was born I believe I was taken to church even without knowing what church was what who God was I was a kid but I was already in church and then I grew up in Sunday school so the word Jesus or the name Jesus which I really do respect a lot was not strange to my ears but you know like growing up that's when I discovered okay so being a Christian means this and this and this you know okay as I'm growing older so I feel it would be a sin and it would not be okay if I share aspects of my life because I believe I tell stories through the music for me I tell you about how I fell in love through a song and I don't tell you about my relationship with God again through a song because I really want to be authentic as fast the music is concerned so I'm being in a space where the competition was Christian centered it was an opportunity to show people something they've never seen before which is now the religious side of me I'm a religious person I'm a Christian so it was just an opportunity for me to just show you like a side of me to open up my religious side you know because they are friends who know me but they don't know my gospel songs they just know probably that one love song that I sang somewhere that's the thing you know but I decided to open this page like I'm also spiritual I pray you know and some there is superior being I believe I believe in yeah so it was just a platform for me to also just respect and honor God for who he is and whom probably he has been like in my life so I'm glad like I'm glad I was part of it and I just fall in that category of authentic people yeah I never lie in my songs even if I sing about how I robbed someone trust me I did see now problem is we had this conversation but he made promises anyway we had this conversation and I want to say it out loud so that we're all on the same page do you feel it's a bit cliche that all these auditions and things and winners are targeted to one form of art it's always some singer who's weaning or if it's a dancer it has to be a dance competition yeah or if it's a spoken word type situation it has to be very specific but when it's broad we kind of fall on the singers I don't know if they was in some type of way that the rest don't music has a benefit that I do acknowledge many of us will easily fall towards if I did say is I love you you'll be like oh thanks that's sweet but it comes I won't attempt to sing but I will there's a certain thing that music can do that just happens across the board but music like any other art is multi-layered and there are many layers that because music has been very marketed I don't know that's the right word but accessible that has been peeled so it's quite easy for people to pick up on those ones but for others like dance or spoken word or art this ones haven't really hit the public eye as much so sometimes it's harder to appreciate art or sometimes harder to appreciate dance because those are and things that we frequently see or frequently interact with everyone has their favorite song but not everyone has a favorite dance group or their favorite artist so I understand that bias I understand the cliche but I do wish or do desire for that continued appreciation for different forms of art from theater to breakdowns beatbox just there's so much beauty in what is available to us so I do see the cliche but I fight it I want to see a ventriloquist good luck I can't just be seen you won't see them you'll hear them though so your so I'm quite pun intended I will get to you now you see I haven't forgotten almost forgotten my question anyway let me reboot my mind at Y254 channel on Twitter Y254 underscore channel on the gram hashtag of the day is why in the morning don't have you ever been told why is singing it's your thing your time can you go to school like if I was was mentioning that I am not first of all as young as I look I keep telling you so when I was growing up there was no room for natural talent was something that we were going to do after we're working and the of importance is going to school and not just going to school working hard in school and after you've done working hard in school graduates don't talk to boys there's no time to talk to boys and then you get a job and then you make a lot of money and then suddenly the boys are entering into the conversation and you ask you're being asked why you don't have a family yet but art was never there so is it the same for you and also on the same do you feel a certain kind of pressure to brand yourself in a way like is your hair like the way it is because you have to wear it the way okay can I start off with my hair I really love my hair yeah yeah like I do so I'll be honest I don't want to lie so I mean I was having this Afro but I was getting tired of meeting every single guy that I say hi to they have the same same Afro I really believe in honesty so I'd rather not lie you know so let me just be as honest as possible so I I I just got tired of meeting everyone and then introducing themselves and I'm like your head is just as boxed as mine I got tired you know and so at one point a friend just suggested to me like why didn't you just do something do dreads and I was like no I don't like dreads yeah I don't like dreads so my friend was like so what do you want to do I was like I'll think of something so I decided I'm just gonna go all natural with my hair but just do something with it so if tomorrow I just decide to and do it again and maybe do something different with it like I'll do that so that's with my hair now the question was um branding sort of yourself um no I don't have issues with that and I don't feel the pressure to dress in a certain way I just feel free to be who who I am you know I'm so comfortable in how I dress and besides that I love music I don't love the things that come along with it you know like um I love fashion yes but that's not where my heart is my heart is also my my heart is in the art itself my joy and my fulfillment comes from um creating and um just doing something better than the way like I've been doing them but my joy does not come in putting on some Gucci or something it's it's none of my concern my concern is is the music good that's my issue is my my lyrics on point am I growing like that is my concern because um I I think my I'm kind of looking this way by no probably with art and with music I have to look both ways but I think I'm I think I'm probably going to give it like a 30 70 like on the fashion thing I'm going to go 30 but on the music side and I'm on the skill level like I'm going to go and put 70 effort on this side yeah because after all is said and done I want my music to just speak for itself I don't want you liking me because of a nice jacket now I want you to like me because you like the music I want you to fall in love with the music because that way like I have you hooked like for the rest of your life but with fashion it changes in time yeah and then the last question was do you do you feel that you are supported because of your art not just yeah you're following a script like you must go to school you must do this and please by the I started the show telling you that knowledge is very important and no one can take it away from you they can say a lot of things thick stones all that but knowledge it's only the good love that can tell you yeah so are you in the I want to say do you subscribe to the philosophy of school is great or do you just want to quit it all together and just focus on your art where do you strike the balance no I'm going to answer that with the verse in the bible if you read in Proverbs one the Bible said that wisdom is in the streets calling but if you read again on Proverbs the Bible says that people are ignorant to to probably hear it like they say they don't perceive it so I don't want to like turn a blind eye on school that will be the worst mistake ever so number one I'm going back to school maybe this May or September so I kind of just advise people to really really really make intentional decisions and you plan out your life outside the normal which is the normal in Kenya every person at this particular age is supposed to be in campus is supposed to be in high school so I kind of just like decided to how about I create my own thing how about I just live my life under my own terms which was a struggle with my parents because in my dad's house you don't move like that you move the way my brothers are moving but I was I think I was hard headed like I decided to just I was even sharing with Kifue and I was telling him I have my life I had my life like planned out on my own so immediately after high school when my friends were joining campus I decided I'm not going to and my dad spoke to me and he's like are you going back to school I was like no I'm not he's like so what are you gonna be doing are you looking for a job I was like no I'm not I already have a job he was like so yeah so he was like what job yeah my dad was like what job I was like I have a skill I have a talent and I'm really going to just dedicate four good years to just work on it the same way like people go to campus for four years and work on their degrees I'm taking four years I'm gonna work on my singing I'm gonna work on my rap and by the time these people are coming out of school and they sing when I sing I'm just gonna sing different and you're gonna tell these seniors of practice on this other end so the hardest part is in making a decision and just like like just sticking to it and sticking to the plan when it rains when the sun is really really hot when you're going through this drought as a creative and still holding on and just hiding in there and being patient because my parents like he can tell you like they I believe that he has were like they couldn't believe it because it really does make sense I bet I bet for them yeah yeah the money kind of helps to make them believe because you know like people need to see to believe yeah so for them it was like that but for me it was like kind of a wake-up call for me to just be true to myself and to know that god honors that like when you're true to yourself and when you put in the work he's gonna reward that and I believe that god literally never lets any work go and reward it he's not a man like a man can literally overlook some of the things that you do but god is not a respecter of persons like so long as you put in the work you put in the time and he sees it I think he just honors it all right now I want us to stay on that line of school I'll tell you a story so the storyteller is very keen to hear my story so I interviewed two girl girl guys girl guys yes girl guys so they were part of an exchange program they were in Kenya on we did this last week in fact on international women's day it happened fall on a Wednesday so one was from Uganda and one was from Madagascar first of all Madagascar has never seen a boarding school in her life I know right but that's not what we knew before they knew what's good was that also took me out but the one from Uganda surprised me a bit because first of all the system goes up until form six it's it's how it was before eight four four came and did things before cbc now came and did more things so in the system between I think from five and from six they have an option to choose whether you're doing the arts or you're doing the sciences now what kind of you tell me how you feel before I tell you how I feel so apparently we were talking about looks and and how it has any relation to you know brains because can you be beautiful and be smart at the same time so apparently society I know it's it's ridiculous that but anyway so the the general gist of it when she was talking is that the arts were full of what we call beautiful people because they have more time to put effort so they want to do the arts and in the sciences it's not me who said it I promise you I'm I've seen very beautiful doctors and I think you know that particular field is disgusting the hard and very very long and tedious and also being a lawyer it's not very easy but you get it like if you're in the arts first of all you're not that adept to brilliance I'm trying to sugarcoat it as much as I want I'm trying to make it you know sweet so well it the yeah so how do you feel about that as an artist do you feel robbed of of like why I understand the bias that could happen from that because often I do understand sometimes it's born out of a place of bio so if you've you know gone through all these years of school and then Kim Kardashian is a billionaire you I can understand for no reason you catch feelings I understand when you catch feelings and you're like oh what to our creatives see brains need to need to malooks I get that inherent bias that someone can have but to lump everyone in the entire category not to say that Kim Kardashian is not brilliant contrary to popular belief the ability to take what they've gone through and turn it into a multi-billion industry is not easy that's intelligence yes it's just it's not the intelligence that has been valued by society it's not the intelligence though of oh I went to school I got a degree and I made money of that degree that's a street smarts but again so I I understand the bias that people have towards when a creative pursues that outside of the you know the lawyer or the business degree of the accountant the doctor but there is a special a special yes mekubalis is a special no pick that up no let's keep moving keep pushing there's a special intelligence that's associated with creative if you listen for example to Tom Paine's lyrics ask someone off the top of the mind to come up with that or someone randomly from the streets can you write something like that it's not as easy as we would like to say that it is and to create is its own form of intelligence and creativity is present in every every career so I know that there's that bias but I don't catch feelings because it's a bias born out of ignorance and that that that's something that we can fight yeah I don't have five minutes I don't want to finish come on anyway at white five for Facebook white to five what's on Twitter hashtag is why the morning if for example we put you on a pedestal and said Tom Paine you are from now on the leader of boy children what would you like to tell the other boy children in terms of maybe pursuing their dreams in terms of not giving up especially when you said they don't and okay I'd like to believe maybe perhaps you don't understand that creatives can get either writer's block as a writer there's this sometimes it's it's not adding up something that you wake up and it just kind of pours out of you even have to really fast write it down before you forget and sometimes it's in abundance sometimes it's not there so how how do you keep pushing should I give them my formula or maybe I should just think on what I've been reading or listening I think you should speak from your heart oh I wish I had a DJ and give you a drop right now honestly how do I deal with that um I get mad that's one like when I have no content and I'm maybe when I'm writing things and I'm like no yeah I do get mad and it's okay to get mad as a creative like you need to you need to um how I deal with it is I hang in there you don't have to wait for inspiration or it will never come never never so all you have to do is just hang in there and trust the process you know or maybe sometimes when it's not coming write about how the creativity is gone so you counter it because I feel like that pressure really comes from within us or maybe like when you haven't been writing for so long and then now you're back again to writing like it has been for me like I've been giving out more I've been performing more and I'm back to a space now I have to sit back and I'll create there's a lot of doubt there's a lot of fear when I'm writing my first line I'm like is this good enough but what we need to do is just believe in that first bar that you just write that it's gonna lead you now to the next one and then that one is gonna lead you now to the next one and also um just giving out what you can offer us by the moment because it might not make sense to you it might not be the best of you but sometimes even the best of what we think is good when you offer it to the people they're like no and that which you think is the least when you give it to the people and they're like yes now this is all you've been waiting for so I feel like you need to offer to us all these things I think as an artist people think when you're weak and vulnerable when you show people like you're not at your best it's not gonna work for you but at some times it kind of works for you because people get to like kind of relate to you more so they don't look at you as a superhuman you're a person yeah you're just a person you know and yes you do fall short if you check my performances like they want I would say like mine they were not like the perfect performances but I think through the imperfections is how people just kind of relate to it because now they feel like it's just like us they're not looking for Superman you know they're just looking for a man so yeah so through their tough process just embrace it and just just walk through it when it rains it pours but it also it gets better there's two shutters feels so wise right now oh my god two children go wild so part of our team give for it Kimalisa we have a very very I want to say agile I don't maybe it might not make sense in the context I'm putting it but I do feel its agility they posed a couple of questions on our social media handles and one of them is sitting right there baby girl Natalie shout out so one of the questions they asked I think it was either this week when yesterday it was Tuesday yeah yesterday is how do you know when something you're pouring into for example a business or a venture something that's supposed an investment something that's supposed to make money how do you know it's time to stop if it's not making you money is there like a timeline because I imagine the rough was not very easy to put together so did you ever once at one point just you know what I'm tired it's not coming together wait when you're going to go find someone is there a timeline that's a tough question because it assumes that we can perceive the unperceivable there's the example of Shrodinger's cat when something is within the box I like that I understood what you just said okay when something is within the box we always try to understand its state even if we can't see it that's kind of how sometimes entrepreneurship bubble is where you do not know when this thing will pan out when it will live or when it'll die but there is that belief that it's going to pan out to some point so I do not actually have an answer whether there's a point where when you're looking at the business itself I'd say it has to do more with you if you still have fire within you to keep pushing for it keep pushing with it if you have lost hope it's possibly best to stop because even at that point you will not be giving it you're all you will get bitter you will begin to hate the project itself or the business itself and you will not enjoy the journey for what it is I have a friend who pursued film for years and gave everything towards it and then after 10 years I like I don't enjoy this I'm done I'm going to go look for a desk job and they have no regrets they didn't leave that space being that on for I wish I kept pushing for this but they also that and for I give my all towards it I've left there with no regrets that perhaps would be the best way to approach it when you're thinking also in terms of your business have you given your all can you leave that space with no regrets knowing that you've done your best then leave there if you still feel like there's an element that you haven't tried out try it out so that if you move forward you do not leave regrets behind and if it works out you're like so I just needed to give it that extra edge so is it in terms of business no idea for yourself that's what I'd say is there a pause button is it just black or white play or stop you can pause you can pause you can pause I would fully agree with the element of taking a break and also perhaps so for a case in point me who's a storyteller and who's fully interested in film I have sold insurance I have taken on desk jobs in the meantime while this wasn't paying out I can't imagine you on a desk but okay I kill it I sit on that desk and I excel that document to death I put that word on it I powerpoint my way through the presentation and I out look like a boss I hope you see what you did there all right in conclusion because time is running away from us maybe could you tell us your social media handles how we can find you if you have a new project coming on is the rough season two coming soon perhaps maybe I pray so I pray so I would enjoy a second round of it also because of learning from different things better ways to approach it and yeah we you will I will keep posted on that on my socials socials are d underscore fanatic that's f u n n a t i c which means functional understanding not necessary and that's essentially it that's my instagram that's my twitter facebook kifui karita tom pain as we are finishing there's a very I don't want to say dangerous kind of pressure but there is for winners we're always looking ahead so you won now what what's next do you intend to just let me not lead the witness what next as you give us also issues show show me the handles yeah um special what's next um what's next for me um I think I've been on the on the move like always like the wheel has always been turning so immediately after the rough I resumed like you kind of like press pressed pause on on one end for the competition soft it was done like I I immediately just took like a weekend off and I was back I was back to walk you don't want to break anything to rest and we're going to celebrate like after we really probably like you know get get the better of this art thing I feel like a lot hasn't been done and I'm young like I'm in my 20s so I think I want to do more and I want to do most yeah we're going to take a break you know when I think the boat is just going to tell me it's going to signal it will by the yeah please listen yeah I will listen to it so um what's next for me is um I really want to put good music out there there is good music but I also want to be part of the people who are still pushing the same same agenda and um shuttle to every artist out there doing something for the good that um is not selfish um it's just for the good of the culture the good of the people like I really respect you and I really just want to be part of the movement you know so yeah I'm humbled by the win and just by an opportunity right now like I have an excuse to not put music out you know yeah and um my social media handles right so um Instagram at Tompain underscore Kenya um on all social media platforms actually yeah Tompain underscore Kenya yeah your brief for artists you guys are very brief all right do not go away at 554 facebook by 254 channel on twitter hashtag is what in the morning we are coming back with Brian Sackler 101 on his socials the very very riveting conversation with a comedian I hope but not fresh up thanks stay away