Princess Jully: The Bold Benga Queen Who Campaigned Against AIDS Scourge When Other Artists Maintained a Conspiracy of Silence

By Barack Oduor, Nairobi

The demise of Benga Songstress Princess Jully has reminisced the past of a society’s struggle with an emergence of a scourge that annihilated lives wantonly. The Benga music scene at the height of the 1990s was at its peak as bands churned out wooing lyrics that sent fans into a frenzy, creating a legion of artistes who were almost idolized. Despite the talent boom that gripped the music scene, a sad phenomenon was sweeping the country. The HIV/AIDS pandemic was causing devastation in a way that had billboards and posters scream caution everywhere.

In December 1996, Benga songstress Lilian Auma Aoko, popularly known as Princess Jully produced a blast in the form of a song; Dunia Mbaya, urging Kenyans to be careful about the disease with no cure. When other Benga artistes like Okatch Biggy of Heka Heka Band wooed his fans with lyrics that glorified debauchery at a time when HIV/AIDS related deaths were associated with witchcraft because of little or no knowledge about its cause, Princess Jully stepped forward to educate her audience about this deadly disease.

Her album Dunia Mbaya catapulted her to fame at a time when knife-edge competition on who was Benga’s finest couldn’t be settled. There was Victoria Jazz Band’s Collela Mazee, Shirati Boys Band’s Owino Misiani and other Luo musical band outfits that churned classical hits after hits. Princess Jully’s Dunia Mbaya stands tall among her compositions because of two reasons. First, it helped to demystify the myths around HIV/ AIDS at a time when there was little information about it. Secondly, she was one of the few musicians, only compared to T.P OK Jazz’s Franco Makiadi of Attention na Sida (Beware of AIDS) who decided to warn their fans about the strange unforgiving disease.

Princess Jully’s warning about AIDS was not limited to Dunia Mbaya, there’s a praise song in the very album called Agwenge where she humorously says that the good hearted friend of her is smitten by her good looks but she’s urging caution; Agwenge chuna koda hera bende ne iriti to piny rach (Agwenge is smitten with love for me but will he wait because we need to be cautious).

 Her song Dunia Mbaya was also used to run a campaign against HIV/AIDS across the country. For a disease that was first diagnosed in Kenya in 1984, it took fifteen years for the government to take serious action. In November 1999, President Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi declared HIV/AIDS a national disaster and put in place a comprehensive policy framework for a multisectoral emergency response and large scale measures to contain the situation. 

Princess Jully was born in Nyatike Centre, in the 1970s, when it was the famous Macalder Mines. British colonialists mined gold and copper at the site from 1935 to 1949, and again from 1955 to 1966. With the independence of the country and reduction in deposits, they abandoned the mines and miners who had worked for Macalder took over as artisanal and small-scale miners. It is here, in Macalder, that Princess Jully began her life. In 1979, her family koved to Gina in Homabay County where she joined Gina Primary School. It is this migration that earned her the nickname Alili Nyar Jo-Gina (Alili Daughter of Gina People). However, the family moved back to Nyatike in 1980 and she was transferred and enrolled in Class Two at God Kwach Primary School. But she would not stay for long. They moved again, to Amoyo near Othoch Rakuom. It is here that she sat for her examinations in 1985.

Her music career started as a background vocalist in her husband’s band, Jolly Boys. Her husband, Julius Okumu, aka Prince Julie, her beloved ‘Alili’, was a gifted guitarist and the band played in various resorts across the country, from Mombasa to Nairobi to Kisumu. In Nairobi, they became synonymous with Migosi Bar in Kayole. With her husband being Prince Julie, Lilian Auma Aoko became Princess Jully.

It was all bliss until 1997. At the height of the Dunia Mbaya fame, the band was performing at Kenyatta Sports Centre in Kisumu, one eventful Sunday in October 1997, when her husband began palpitating on stage. The following Friday, Prince Julie collapsed and died, forcing a young Princess Jully to painfully chart a new musical path for herself.

After laying her husband to rest, she picked whatever pieces remained from their band and trudged on. Princess Jully was a natural born fighter. In 1999, she won Shs 100,000 and a Mercedes Benz at the 1999 Kisima Awards for her Dunia Mbaya hit.

In a 2014 interview, she said, “I stopped singing in 2011. I joined the church. The Government did not want to support us. The singers were also divided. After my husband’s death, I formed my own Princess Jully Production Studios in Nairobi. We ran from 1997 to 1998 and collapsed because of piracy. Producing an album cost between Sh100,000 to Sh 150,000. We could not make even a quarter of that money.”

Even when music business collapsed due to piracy, she continued to release new music frequently even after her first wave of late 1990s and early 2000s stardom tapered away. In total, before she quit music, Princess Jully produced 41 albums.

Some of her notable albums include Aneno Lek, her 19^th album, released in March 2007. The album was produced at Ketebul Productions by Tabu Osusa. Her next album Wang’ni Wabiro was released in August 2007. The title song of the album was dedicated to the Orange Democratic Movement ahead of the 2007 General Election. The album was produced by Tedd Josiah of Blu Zebra Studios.She has toured various countries including Switzerland.

In 2010 she released another album Joluo Migingo to Dhi, its title centers the Kenya-Uganda dispute over the ownership of Migingo Island in Lake Victoria. Migingo Island covers less than half a football pitch but over 500 people live on this tiny African fishing island. The dispute started when the government of Uganda started to send armed police and marines to the island to tax fishermen under the pretext of offering protection against pirates in 2004. Kenyan fishermen complained about continued harassment, forced taxation, and accusations of illegal fishing, forcing the Kenyan government to deploy marines to Migingo, a move that nearly brought the two nations to blows. The song saw the Benga maestro bag the top award at the ‘Benga’ music extravaganza, an initiative by the national broadcaster, KBC that was undoubtedly the top award at the time.

At the peak of her career, Princess Jully moved the crowd with her lyrics and was declared the winner of the top cash prize of Sh100,000. According to Shades of Benga by veteran producer Tabu Osusa of Ketebul Studios, Benga genre is undoubtedly dance music because of its fast tempo. Dancers commonly do not hold hands or embrace as is the case with other music, for instance Congolese rumba.

Princess Jully in early 2000s teamed up with other male Benga stars such as Osito Kalle, Dolla Kabarry and Opiyo Bilongo under the Benga Dream Team. They released one album with tracks such as Jackie, Dongo dongo, Aluoch Linet, Wang’a, Belinder and Guonyo.

She was also part of the Divas of the Nile super group, which featured four Kenyan female musicians. The others were Suzzana Owiyo, Achieng Abura, and Mercy Myra. The group performed at the Festival Mundial in Tilburg, Netherlands, in 2007.

Her long, yet illustrious career in music birthed other notable artistes like Atomy Sifa and Lady Maureen who their music paths began at Jolly Boys Band.  The late Lady Maureen went on to be one of the biggest female Ohangla artiste while Sifa’s is known for his enthusiastic dancing antics.

Princes Jully’s songs, especially those that warned masses about the AIDS scourge have been a subject of several academic research and findings. For instance in an article published in the Oxford Academic Journal titled “Confronting AIDS through Popular Music Cultures in Kenya: A Study of Princess Jully’s Dunia Mbaya, Jack Nyadundo’s Ukimwi, and Oduor Odhialo’s Nyakomollo by Mellitus N. Wanyama and Joseph B. Okong’o in 2011, gives an in-depth analysis of how Princes Jully contributed to healthcare matters in the country today.

“Extensive presentations of their song texts demonstrate the artists’ deep engagement with significant health care related issues in Kenya today. In particular, their use of local language terms and popular culture references evoke the threats and realities of HIV infection in East Africa,” notes the research abstract.

Princess Jully bowed out on October 12^th at the High Dependency Unit, Migori County Referral Hospital at 4 pm where she had been admitted for two months. Her passing was announced by her son, Mr Walter Oguda.

“She had been sick ad was at Migori Hospital. First, it was kidney failure then later the heart failed despite showing signs of getting better earlier in the week. Today her condition just deteriorated at once and unfortunately, mama left us at 4pm.”

A gifted musician, belonging to the dying breed of talents who composed songs on the go, without first drafting lyrics on the page, the Luo nation and the Kenyan nation at large have lost a great woman of valor. Her music is a public library of the consciousness around HIV/AIDS in the 1990s and 2000s. You did the good work.

 The writer is an African music archivist and journalist.