Trailblazing Hot

Muthoni Ndonga is a formidable business woman, industry changer and barrier-breaking artiste who has mastered the art of multitasking. She reveals to ANDANJE WOBANDA what her journey to fame has entailed and lessons learnt.

- Andanje Wobanda

Muthoni Ndonga, aka Muthoni the Drummer Queen (MDQ), 36, falls into the pile of people who excel at doing multiple things at once. If you are a new fan, she is either the artist whose aesthetics and genre-bending music has changed the Kenyan music landscape, or, she is the formidable businesswoman who runs Blankets and Wine and African Nouveau. Old fans know the magic that is Muthoni. She is all that, and more.

‘I am a polymath so I thrive in doing multiple things well as opposed to doing just one thing very well,’ she explains. She is seated to my left on the rooftop area of the Foundry in Westlands where her office is located. It is a cold evening but it is made more bearable by the black tea that her assistant has prepared for us. An ever-busy one-woman tornado, she had informed me that she can only afford me one and a half hours of her time so I had to race against time to get everything about what makes her tick in those precious minutes.

Her individuality would never have allowed her to be just one thing. ‘The “either, or” used to bother me a lot before I discovered what being a polymath means. I had never heard the word. I just knew that I had multiple worlds that I run that were somehow connected.’

‘Who I am, fundamentally, is a creator and the thing that I create very easily is music so by definition, my profession is a musician. In the process of figuring out the journey of my artistry, I fell into festival production and my goal was to give other artists a platform. This happens under Good Times Africa –the festival company which does Blankets and Wine, Africa Dance and African Nouveau. I have another thread where I am an industry builder through Muthoni Music Entertainment which I initially thought was going to be a record label. Perhaps there will be a label in the future. Currently, its role has become more and more, one of addressing specific gaps in the market.