 What's up guys? A very warm welcome to SPM bars. My good name is Miss Kipingi. And this is bars with stars. Karibusana. If you have not subscribed, please make sure you do because why not? Subscribed? All right, thank you. Now if you see me here, you know I'm hanging on to your star. And this one is a comedian from South Sudan. He is known as Akao Jambo, but we call him Akei. And he is here in studio today on bars with stars. What's up Akei? I'm good. Excited to be here. How's it going? Karibusana. I actually know quite more than you might think I know. Oh really? Yeah, I was born here. Come on. I swear to God, I was born here. Where? I was born in Kakuma. That's where they manufacture all this South Sudanese. Wait, you were actually born in Kakuma? Yeah, I was born in Kakuma. I stayed in Kenya for early 2000s. I started my baby class, middle class here. Ati baby class. Now they call them. What do they call them? We have a different name. I don't know the name now. It's not even kindergarten anymore. It's something else. Is it preschool now? I think it's preschool. I did baby class and preunit. Then we moved to Uganda in the early 2000s. I know a little bit of Swahili. How old were you when you moved from Kakuma to Uganda? So we moved from Kakuma to Nairobi first, then we stayed and then we moved to Uganda. I moved to Uganda around 2003-2004. So I should have been about 7 years. Around 6 or 7 years. So do you have a memory of how Kakuma was at the time when growing up before 7 years of age? How was it like? It was a very interesting place. It was just a camp here. So it was just like a community of people from different places. Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan. There were different people that were there. And it was just people lived in different groups. You could see the South Sudanese in different places and all of that. And it was so interesting to just find people from different places but in one place because of a common reason and it was temporary in the beginning. But when I went back in 2016, that's almost like 15 years later or something like that, I realized that something that was temporary is no longer temporary. Like people set up businesses. They were like street lights there and I'm like this is not the camp. You grew up in it. Yeah, it was just different. But I was happy to see how my hood is still there. Yeah, but you know I'm just trying to... I'm imagining now how is the language there because now these are people from different countries but you were born there. So what language do people speak there? Actually the most common language there is Swahili to be honest. Really? Yeah, if you want to speak Swahili, if you want to like be understood in the camp or something like that, you gotta speak Swahili to like get to know yourself. You know the Kenyan police so you have to know how to explain yourself when they find you. So back in the days that's how we all learnt how to speak Swahili. My first language was Dinka and then I learnt Swahili. So I could speak both Dinka and Swahili and then I moved to Uganda and I forgot so much of Swahili because the only person that I could speak Swahili with was my brother and we were not continuously talking in that language. So I only picked up more of Dinka, I picked up Luganda, English so my Swahili is a little bit of I understand but you understand for sure. I understand but my expression can I can struggle sometimes when I'm trying to express myself. Yeah, but if I'm trying to impress a girl or I put it all down. Kenyan girls. But now when did you go back to South Sudan now? Um 2020, yeah 2020. Oh yeah yeah yeah I was actually here the whole of 2020. Yes. I was coming from Uganda and I was doing a few shows here and then I was on my way to Melbourne for Melbourne International Comedy Festival and then the pandemic hit so I was stuck here. I was actually with butita this whole time we just hanging out staying for like eight months until they started yeah until they started opening up a little bit and I remember the first gig we did when they opened up I went to the with butita to Tanzania we did that gig and then I got back and I'm like hey man I think I need to go back home like everything is down we don't know what's happening everything is shut down and in South Sudan we just vibing there's no lockdown or anything like that and my passport was about to expire so I was like you know what let me just go home renew my passport and see what home is there for me and yeah I went home and I think it's the best decision that I've ever made when I when I was here I was 8k dance then when I went back home I rebranded the way 8k dance changed I hadn't you know seen that oh yeah it changed because yeah when I went home because I wasn't born at home I didn't grow up there 2020 throughout right now is the most that I've ever spent in my country yes all this time I'm living in different countries and speak different languages learnt a different culture and all of that yeah and the beauty the beauty about art or the art that I do in specific as comedy it involved me digging so much into myself because comedy is comedy is one of the arts that you have to become the most realist person because you have a raw material the raw material is yourself and then you use yourself to find you dig into your trauma and you go down and things that you don't even want to touch and you go and see them so the more I got into comedy the more I felt the urge to visit into who I am except this person that was born in this place or raised in that place so my visit back home made me like look into who I was really spend so much time with my people my cousins learnt so much about myself and I became even more proud of myself yeah because growing up in Uganda we like this you know tatsudonis they would call us different sorts of names and all of that Shea mass and all of that and I was this young kid some people would bully me and all that and I wanted to fit in so I tried so much to learn their languages tried so much to learn their cultures and all of that and while I'm doing that I'm ignoring my language my culture my everything becoming less proud of myself and all of that but comedy helped me discover it and when I went back I was like I'm no longer that kid anymore I am a kawjambu yeah really beautiful I mean I mean they say home home is always best yeah and clearly we can see that from you but I'm just you know growing up as a refugee yeah what is that thing that you didn't grow up just experiencing and when later on you know you came out of the camp and you were able to stand for yourself what is that normal thing that you do right now that you didn't get to do when you are growing up because of living in other people's countries and all that I would say um certainty okay like a lot of people take that for granted but the fact that you know where you'll be in the next uh I mean at the end of the day God God is in control you don't know where you'll be in the future and all that but at least you have a you have to some degree you have a plan of what you want to do where you want to go and how you want to set up your life but in the camp you're in a very temporary place you've just been put there and you don't know what's going to happen next so they're just raising kids they just we just stand people would say we're only here uh uh for a while when South Sudan gets independence we're gonna go back South Sudan got independence we still have millions of people in the refugee camps there people who have been in the refugee camps for like 30 years so that that's a certainty that arch something that you're looking forward to is something that I never had when I was growing up but when I when I grew up and became a better person and discovered my craft I know where I want to be in the next five years and I'm I'm in control of my life I'm driving towards the direction and if there's something I don't need I don't go for it and all of that so I think I really missed out on that and I pray that some other people because I actually I actually thought I was gonna move to the to the US or to Australia because my whole family moved to Australia my step siblings and all of that and that's what my mom was trying to get for us and and that's what's in your head you're not even paying attention in school you're like oh no I'm gonna leave this country I'm going to America yes you're not even planning anything even your own mom's not planning anything serious and then you realize that you are waiting to go for like 15 years oh my god it was only in 2013 when I made the decision like you know what I'm gonna make it here like that was the last time we tried to go yeah so that that uncertainty is can damage you so much I can imagine and you see there's a time you spoke in a sudden interview and you were talking about generational trauma yeah that you know just went through how are you able to overcome that did you just tell yourself you know I have to overcome this did you have to talk to someone how are you able to get there overcoming it's it's not you can't say you've overcome it we just find ways to maneuver around it but uh I I was telling a friend the other day that there's some things that just require a whole generation to be wiped out okay for them to to like to like get yeah to be okay like some things we just need to die as a generation for those things for our children not to go through those things we just have to phase out and and and and that's that that's the thing as like at the moment like our country just got independence in 2011 and everyone almost everyone did not live there so people come from different countries the people were coming from Kenya from Uganda from Sudan Egypt Australia America different upbringing different way of life and all of that and there are people that are living in the country so there's a clash cultural clash the Ugandan and Kenyans are gonna relate a little bit but still there's that and then there's the ones who grew up in Sudan and all they're gonna relate a little bit but still and all these people grew out of grew up out of the country because of say the same reason and they have the same almost the same trauma is just they have different languages of expressing their trauma and you will find that people are less tolerant to each other just a small thing is gonna spark people people are just gonna get into small fights you like like right now what people do even like you can get into a fight with someone in traffic and then all of you someone raises their voice you raise your voice then when they when that person knows that you're also a person with a with temper you all cool down then realize that you guys just it's something very simple so yeah i think with time more more education more exposure coexistence and all of that we'll learn to to get rid of it and and that's the good thing with time you know when you actually just set you you set your mind into getting better time time makes it happen it does does time heals a lot of things it does it does now you know the other day you went to the US you guys everything has traveled all over the world he has taken stages that's what all over the world he has just a few countries every day you met your your mum your guardian yes yes in the US yes yes she used to pay your school fees yes yes she did and you hadn't met her ever never how was that moment it was an interesting moment like i i am i am she she lives in norfolk norfolk is a is a some some city in in things in virginia yeah so i went all the way to dc and then my cousin and i drove to norfolk's like five hours and i really really wanted to see the the good things that things worked out very well so my plan was to go see her and then i told my cousin and my cousin was like i actually bought tickets for kevinat's concert in norfolk so we can go watch the concert and then see her i'm like yeah sounds good okay so she um i think in 2007 8 i think when my mum had just passed on my uncle who lived who lives in the US until now like he he tried to like find school for us and like put us in in school and all of that yes so uh reached out to her i don't know what their relationship was but reached out to her with just our pictures and she accepted to put us in school and she had never seen us so all we needed to do is just when we're done with school you just send her your report card blah blah blah she keeps on just pay school pays rent and all of that for almost think about almost about 10 years because my other cousins just it was the five hours so my cousins just finished like two years ago there were a few classes behind me and um and yeah she was always supportive we never knew each other so i went to visit her a very very interesting woman i spent like two two days at her place some beautiful cuts and then she took me to her library with all these kids she's looking after 150 kids and she's 66 i'm like wow and she has been doing this for 20 years wow i'm like yo this is this is this is crazy and then uh she she just went through her archives and found some of my report cards from primary school yeah it was it was it was so exciting i was i was so happy to be there it just just felt so good so she would collect money from different people in different churches and all of that so we went and visited one of the families that would contribute money to us and uh i went to her house also she had pictures of me and my brothers around amazing it was just beautiful there i mean it sounds amazing for sure now you just mentioned kevin hart and i've seen you um mentioned kevin hart in most of your captions and i'm just thinking maybe kevin hart is one of those people that you look up to is that true yeah he's in my top five i want to say he's in my top five i i love his drive i love his energy um i wish i wish i worked as hard as he does i wish he i wish he is um uh you just gotta admire him like because i read his book i know his story i read his book i followed a lot of his uh his movies his his specials and all of that it's just um you just when you see him you just learn that hard work will definitely pay yeah and yeah and it's a process that's that's that's like the most important thing yeah so he's in my top five okay okay now what is that one stage you'd consider the biggest stage you've performed and just tell us a little bit how it came about and you know just how excited you are the biggest stage i've been on i think it's without a doubt um i want to see if i did something in the u.s that should be no no no it's without a doubt love festival okay the chachils are love festival oh really yeah i did it it was it was so interesting how i got on i think it was the it was like i was in like a year into my career i started in 2016 i did love festival in 2017 december so almost a year and um and i did this show in Uganda with Daniel Omara he's a very funny Ugandan comic and he liked my set and he said hey man i'm going to i'm going to run in in two weeks do you want to come with me i said cool i went with them to run out with some other comics and then we did the Rwanda gig and it was also very good and another guy saw me uh he was a manager he saw me perform and he's the manager of uh i think Ata and then he said i am we are going to um to Nairobi next uh in december for this festival uh i i if you don't mind i can like recommend you and then you can reach out and see if you can do it so he gave me the and it's so funny that i was i was so broke yes then that yo i look back and i'm like how did i even survive i was so broke i am i lost my phone no i didn't lose it it fell down and broke i had i had a i had a note five it fell down and the screen broke and i could not fix it the six the screen needed about 200 dollars to fix it i couldn't afford that so i had a very very small phone like a button phone and i mean rwanda exactly and i mean rwanda and this guy is trying to give me his email i can't put it anywhere so i get my book i get my comedy book i write the email in the back then i write his number then i said when i go to Uganda to Uganda i'm gonna get maybe internet cafe or something and i send the email so i come back and do the same thing i just send the guy an email and then i move on my life i think like after four days i went back to go check and the guy had replied erik yes yes is i don't know erik kitwi kitili kitili yeah yeah yeah sorry for messing up his name yeah erik i i sent him an email i say oh sky told me about the show and i'm from south sudana i would love to do the show the guy was like oh yeah yeah but we've already booked our lineup but if you can come here you can do it i'm a very young i'm 19 years old i am my drive is i want to make it i can do anything to go to go get it i said cool i'm coming i committed to coming through i didn't even have money but i knew i mean you don't even have a form yes i knew that i was gonna i was gonna find a way to to make it so yeah i go around just i had i think i was able to get like about about 50 bucks okay and that that required like a bus station was gonna cost me like 25 bucks then i have 25 left but i have to pay for visa like oh so now i had to go get like a Ugandan travel document yes and i'm not Ugandan i just went i'm like i speak Ugandan and try and i figured my way out i found something yes and then i came here uh on the on the 11th of December the day of the show that's when i arrived here yeah like uh my bus you know during December buses are so hard to find so i had already paid for this bus the bus they put someone else the bus left now i was like stranded at the bus station then there was a cargo bus was this guy i don't remember his name but all i know is he called me afrika so i called him afrika he was the he was the conductor so he accepted to put me in his bus and the whole time the guy was telling me stories that did not make any sense but i just had to receive the stories i listened because that's the only way i'm getting to Nairobi the guy keeps on telling me afrika we are the same people we are mapan afrika tell me about tomasankara and mandela and all of that i'm receiving i'm just listening to him yeah we get to Nairobi he was so nice to me you get to Nairobi here he takes me out for for when we had just arrived takes me out we go eat the food then i come back then i wait for for for Eric to pick me up actually yes Eric came and picked me up he took me to the the place i checked out the show my friend tumbili is a we've been friends with tumbili for like six years now yeah he came around also he like i stayed at his place i remember and yeah the evening was the time of the show everything was set up i went on stage around around eight or nine there's like four acts before me i go on and it was stunning it was very very beautiful um i shared the the the video a few days later and that was my breakthrough so when i put it up i got all this following everywhere that's how people go up up to now people still refer to one of the jokes that i did on that night that i have not done again until now i only did it on that night and the video was so viral the joke people refer to the joke so much that i've never done it again because when i go on people literally know it they they know it so you can't especially be people back at home so i can't repeat it so i would love to do it again though i'll find a place where no one knows yeah i'll do it wow that sounds like a movie and it's so memorable to you because i mean it was your breakthrough through my breakthrough yeah okay um let's go back to you know south sudan because you are a bit vocal on social media about the political administration you create kids about it tell us why you feel you know just pushed to talk about this whole issue about you know the administration back in your country um i i believe i mean as artists we are social commentators so everything that's around around the society is what we comment on we choose we pick and choose what we want to what we want to speak on what we are more informed about that we would love to address and all of that and i have always been interested in critical thinking not only politics critical thinking people human beings leadership and all of that i'm always interested in addressing that and talking to people and all that and i'm one of the people that believes that everything is political there's nothing like saying that i don't i'm not i'm not into politics our life has been politicized medicine has been politicized you've seen the you've seen the issue of um of of row row versus weight it has been politicized every single thing that comes out right now is politicized so you can't say that i'm not into politics yes what you eat has been politicized where you sleep has been put there are policies to discuss how much you buy that camera that you're using and everything so at the end of the day it's it's what capitalism does they they put things on the table they discuss them and if you're not part of those discussions you're gonna be you're gonna be the one that that that complains of foul play and so that's what drives me like if you want a better place for someone else or for yourself you gotta speak up and there's no one else is gonna provide that better place and um and as a social commentator and besides i'm good at it so i i love doing all those jokes it's it's it's easy content for me i just love like uh hitting it and all that and just just moving on okay now you know on your profile on instagram right there you have indicated that lul deng not followed you it's not so elated about that tell us who is lul deng and why and what does that mean to you because he actually follows you yeah yeah yeah uh lul deng is a legend man he's uh um he's we were having a conversation a few months ago with some friends about about patriotism in south sudan and the question was like what what would connect someone that is in the southern part of south sudan with someone that's in the northern part of south sudan and uh and and and you know culture and sports play a very big role in in uh bringing people together in Indonesia if you look at a place like Kenya right now there are so many figures or so many things that people celebrate from all corners of the country you could be let's say what's your what's your favorite who's your favorite musician or like a band or anything like that come on let's just fix south isol because okay south isol all right south isol so you'll find someone that is in uh is in pokot or in the Turkana region or anywhere else that is a fan of south isol to a point that when you meet and you express your love for south isol this person will connect with you and it brings you to the whole topic of but or bringing people together as a nation and all of that and now for south sudan we didn't have a lot of that because we were all like different places different things we don't we didn't have kumun figures and all of that and uh luol den became one of those people that brought that to the table as uh he was who uh he's a he played for he played for Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers in uh in uh NBA and um so when he when he retired he moved to south sudana and he created a basketball team that it started playing here in Nairobi actually their first games were here in Nairobi and they started qualifying slowly going to run kufling for this and that and right now they're number one in Africa big deal like like um the other day when they when they went to um Tunisia because of the qualification of the world cup and they they're going to qualify they're doing so well right now they just just have one more round than they qualify inshallah you should have seen the reception in the country everyone received them the airport was open until nine p.m keep in mind our airport closes at seven at six actually but for them the airport was open until around nine p.m until they got into the country and everywhere you go it's a basketball team that's the communication that's everything and it's because of this guy that woke up one day and said i'm going to invest my money in this and get kids from all over the place these are kids that grew up in different countries and brought them back home they're south sudanis but they did not have anything that connects them to their to their to their country and yeah and the game connected them and the game made them made all of us connect and i highly i highly respect him for that i respect him for that i um i think i think it's one thing that a lot of uh of our people should do in medicine in arts in anything if you have the ability to to do that then do it so that's why when you followed me i was like oh followed by big deal legend in the house nba oh it's a millionaire it also feels you know like and he's my only millionaire friend so but but i think with with rich friends they have to confirm the friendship so i have to have to wait for him so like are we friends yeah yeah he confirms it not me that's really good okay now what what really motivates you in life what keeps you going what motivates me is where i come from i don't want to go back where i came from for sure yeah so that's if if you don't want your past then you gotta change it and that's what pushes me and i do not want a single like i appreciate it i love it it's what made me who i am right now and all of those things that my upbringing and my and everything that i learnt is the reason i am who i am but i don't want to go there it's like you know when you have a very very delicious meal but you're like but i don't want to do it again so it was beautiful but i don't want to do it again so that that's what pushes me i i i want to change i want to change my past i want to be in a better place and for the people around me as well and i want to be able to help when i can yeah support help when when i can yeah how how does it feel to be a manu fun lately for the past 10 years it has been hectic but but we keep on we keep on pushing yeah we keep on i mean even so last been doing it you need a little bit of a disappointment in your life like life cannot be just sweet everything was okay no no no sometimes ups and downs you only know you're happy when you get when you get peace sometimes yeah manu helps me with that oh come on now AK what are you doing Kenya what are we expecting from you please tell your fans a something uh i was doing a few shows here i was in Dar es Salaam actually had a show in Dar es Salaam i was like you know let me also pass by Nairobi i haven't been back since 2020 and to be honest i just wanted to come around see my people hang out with my people this beautiful space when i left when i left this place was not there and so it's beautiful the the office was still in the room still in but it has room so i'm really happy and proud that such things have like when you friends grow around it's also a way that you can wage your growth you cannot say you are growing people around you are not growing like even sometimes when i'm not really really there and i look at the people around me i'm like oh yeah i'm in the right space at least and i'm proud that people around me are doing amazing things like this including amazing stuff you getting waves from the president like that's that's what i'm talking about yeah okay great now AK please tell people where they should follow you you know um on your social platforms tell them tell them yep um all my social media platforms are akawjumbo akawjumbo is a k a u jambo jambo so you can actually the first yeah tell me about jambo is it's actually the funny thing about jambo so my dad was born in 1963 63 62 the same time that jumo kenyata became the president yes over over of kenya so my grandfather's intention was to name his son jumo after jumo kenyata then the south sudanis got the name they twisted him he became jumbo he became jumbo so yeah that's how i got it so it's akawjumbo aka jumbo my website is the same akawjumbo.com yeah and everywhere okay where are you traveling next i'm going home for now uh huh yeah i'm gonna chill a bit all right relax a bit man thank you so much for coming through for pleasure to say hi to us it was a pleasure very happy to be here all right guys that was ak all the way from south sudan right here on buzz with stars thank you so much for watching make sure you leave a comment down below on the comment section if you got encouraged by our conversation we're in the meantime keep it buzz with stars right here on espm buzz my good name is miss kithingi goodbye