Mbilia Bel's rumba 'Nakei Nairobi' was reworked for Kenya under Moi, The Citizen says

Mbilia Bel's rumba "Nakei Nairobi", whose title means "I have gone to Nairobi", was reworked with Kenyan town names and the national slogans "Harambee" and "Nyayo" to keep Congolese music welcome in Kenya under President Daniel arap Moi, Tanzania's The Citizen reported on 23 October 2026.

The paper tells the song's story as a journey. A young woman learns that her childhood friend is being mistreated in Nairobi and travels to Kenya to bring her back to Kinshasa.

The story reflects the regional ties that had made Nairobi an important destination for Congolese musicians, The Citizen says. Their influx gathered momentum in the 1970s, and the city became a regional centre for Congolese music, with a growing middle-class market and nightclubs that drew enthusiastic crowds.

Moi's government then pushed for more local content in the media. The paper says the crackdown threatened the circulation of foreign music and, with it, Congolese artists' access to Kenyan radio. In its account of the song's history, Tabu Ley Rochereau, Mbilia Bel's mentor, worked with Brazos Mpanga and others to change the lyrics, adding references to Kenyan towns and to Harambee and Nyayo. In live performances, the lyrics could be adjusted further to include Moi's name. The paper says this let the musicians keep their Kenyan market without confronting the government.

A review in Talking Drums magazine, in the issue dated 29 April 1985, lists "Nakei Nairobi" among the tracks of Mbilia Bel's album Keyna, alongside "Keyna" and "C'est Toi Que J'aime"/"Cadence Mudanda". The reviewer, Kwabena Asamoah, wrote that the album "currently reigns supreme as number one on the London African chart". The record carries the catalogue number GEN 114 on the Genidia label.

Citizen Digital, a Kenyan news site, wrote in July 2022 that Mbilia Bel was born in Congo in 1959 and began her music career at 17. Her career blossomed in 1981, it said, after she recorded a song and toured with Tabu Ley Rochereau. The site gave a different account of the song's origin: it said "Nakei Nairobi" was composed to praise Moi and to encourage cohesion between Kenyans and Congolese living in Kenya.

The Nation's Amos Ngaira reported on 27 June 2017 that Tabu Ley was her mentor, that her performances in Kenya began with his Afrisa International band, and that she sang "Nakei Nairobi" with him in the mid-1980s.

That article covered her 2017 "Kenya Peace Tour", which the organisers said was built around the song. It listed a concert at The New Meladen Club in Upper Hill, Nairobi, and a show scheduled for 7 July at the Victoria Railway Club in Kisumu. "After 35 years in music, I am gradually beginning to feel the need to now concentrate on studio work and less on live shows," she said, as quoted by the Nation.