Legend Chuck Berry was an uncrowned king in Africa

Throughout the 1950s to 1970s, Chuck Berry, the African American musical genius – who died last week – was a loud, booming thunderstorm. In East Africa, however, he was a distant tree. Radios nourished the sensational Elvis Presley, a white musician who embraced black music and turned it into his nest and shoe. Yes, just click on YouTube and play Blue Suede Shoes, you will hear what I am trying to say. To date we all know Elvis as the “king of rock ‘n roll”.

Elvis was good no doubt and I do love his stuff, but those who rocked and built the foundation were mostly black musicians led by this man, Chuck Berry.

In the past 50 years or so, many African parents have named their sons Elvis. In fact, one of the most famous Swahili writers is called Elvis Musiba. I have yet to hear any African naming their child Chuck, let alone Berry.

I was 17 years old around 1972 when I first heard his name mentioned with glee in a Kenyan radio station. Those days your radio was where you heard things. Now in his prime (aged 46), Chuck Berry had come out with a simple tune, My Ding a Ling, which stayed on Nairobi top ten songs for months. But still Chuck Berry was not that huge.

In Kilimanjaro and Arusha where Anglo-American music was part of mbege, joy and Mtori, we would play the great white crooners of the era. Jim Reeves, Dolly Parton, Skeeter Davis, the Beatles and, of course, Elvis Presley. We Chaggas loved Skeeter Davis songs during Christmas and Easter, but never hooked into the connection to black American artists. Take the big Skeeter Davis tune Blue Berry Hill. I never realised it was composed by another unknown (in Africa) black pianist Fats Domino.

Nowadays it is normal for us to appreciate stuff by both white and black artists. Powerful white hip-hop word machine Eminem, for example, has turned the black medium art into something as sweet as chocolate and sacred like the Bible and in the process, involved the fantastic black producer and artist, Dr Dre. In 2017, it is nothing strange to have white and black artists mingle and share and reap rewards. In the era when Fats Domino, Little Richard and the departed Chuck Berry were hooting and blasting the streets of America, it was racism, lynching, racism, obscurantism.

Only when young British musicians – the great excellent bands Beatles and Rolling Stones – came along and openly acknowledged the power of these “niggers” as human art factories did the world start to stare. I actually, started listening to Chuck Berry seriously when the Jamaican reggae icon Peter Tosh recorded his classic Johnnie B Goode in 1983. Thought it was a reggae hit by Tosh himself. Soon I listened to Chuck Berry. Then watched videos and saw the essence and natural gift. Saw the craftsmanship. Guitar licks I had thought were coming from Elvis and Beatles and Stones were all “borrowed” from Chuck Berry.

The media here has been saying how Berry (born Charles in 1926) was a good at saying lots of deep things with few words. Take the naughty Ding a Ling. He recounts growing with his grandmother then learning to play the “Ding a Ling.” Creatively tells his live British audience to do a call response. Women to begin “I want you to play…” he interjecting “with” and the men replying: “My Ding A Ling…”

Nothing explained yet we all know what the hidden meaning is. Cheeky, subtle, funny, naughty. Swahili singers have stuff like that in sensual taarab music. Bunduki bila risasi yaua namna gani? (How can a gun without a bullet kill?”). Innuendos subject to interpretation.

John B Goode is autobiographical and was so special that it was taken to the moon by astronauts in 1969.

Chuck Berry was born in the same era as unique innovators and leaders: Nelson Mandela, Kenneth Kaunda, Mwalimu Nyerere, Fidel Castro, Ali Mwinyi, Miles Davis…

He is extraordinarily significant for helping creating the rock ‘n roll song format, with its intro, verse, chorus, guitar solo, then verse and final chorus. He had charisma and the way he played his guitar has shaped what we pop musicians do. Most of our guitar players, the Francos, John Boscos and even upcoming kizazi kipya (Vitali Maembe), know this format.

He was scandalous and went to jail a couple of times, but unlike most rock musicians, did not drink alcohol. He is said to have been a very serious chap, punctual, demanding payment upfront and no wonder lived to be 90. Meantime, he supported his family of four kids and wife, Themetta “Toddy” Suggs, who he married in 1947 and is still alive. Survival for a fit genius. Made us smile. Left a legacy. Someone to emulate and look up to. Eternal hero.