EMILY FENG, HOST:
If you ever get to go to Nairobi, you will almost certainly see or use them - brightly painted minibuses blasting music through traffic called matatus. Legally, they're public transport, but culturally, they're something much, much more. Emmanuel Igunza takes us inside one of these moving worlds.
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EMMANUEL IGUNZA, BYLINE: You don't just board an Onyx bus. It swallows you whole. The second you step inside, the sound engulfs you - gospel, Gengetone, Afrobeats - all competing at volumes that make conversation pointless.
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IGUNZA: And today, I've scored the front seat, riding for about 30 minutes with Henry Muindi, the owner, from Nairobi's Central Business District out to Dandora in Eastlands.
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IGUNZA: Eight TV screens flash music videos around the cockpit alone - 16 in total. Blue LEDs chase each other across the ceiling. Every surface is painted - pictures of footballers, rappers, politicians in wild chromatic detail. I ask Muindi if 16 screens isn't a little excessive.
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HENRY MUINDI: If you go to a fancy club, how many screens do they have? They have so many screens.
IGUNZA: Well, there are a lot multiple screens.
MUINDI: Exactly, multiple screens, so the same thing - this is a fancy place. This is a fancy vehicle with fancy people.
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IGUNZA: Onyx is new and already the most popular bus on this route - the graffiti, the music, the young crew.
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MUINDI: Onyx is part of the culture of the matatu. This culture, it can't be stopped.
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MUINDI: It's like a wave. This is a season for Onyx and, of course, among many other nganyas. We call them nganyas.
IGUNZA: Nganya is slang for these blinged-out vehicles - privately owned minibuses that operate as public transport. But over the past decade, they've become something else entirely - moving canvases, mobile sound systems, rolling declarations of what young Nairobi finds cool right now. I ask Muindi what makes one matatu to stand out from another. He lands on a metaphor that says as much about him as it does about the matatus.
MUINDI: It's like a woman who has done a very nice makeups (ph) on herself. Obviously, you'll identify her. You'll be able to point out at her in town, all right?
IGUNZA: Yeah.
MUINDI: Compared to a woman who's just - you know, a lady who's just there and no makeups, no nothing.
IGUNZA: Our driver today on the morning shift is Dennis Kimani (ph) - chains around his neck, music in his bones. He tells me the playlist follows a strict schedule.
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DENNIS KIMANI: From 6 a.m. to 7 or 8, that's gospel.
IGUNZA: Oh, you play gospel.
KIMANI: Yeah. Yeah. Every day.
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KIMANI: From 8 to 10, R&B, old-school R&B.
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KIMANI: From 10 to 12, old-school hip-hop. From 12, rap.
IGUNZA: Kimani adjust his chains and laughs. To drive nganya, you have to match the energy of the bus.
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KIMANI: When you're nganya driver, you have to look like that nganya. Nganya's clean.
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KIMANI: It's hyped up. So you have to be clean. You have to be hyped up, happy. Like, you have to be jovial.
IGUNZA: Yeah.
KIMANI: Yeah. You're getting me - a certain style.
IGUNZA: Yeah.
We roll into Dandora. Kids line the road, shouting as the bass spills into the streets.
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IGUNZA: In a city that can feel chaotic, unequal, exhausting, these vehicles hit like a huge jolt of voltage, like resistance to boredom, like youth insisting on being seen and heard. Henry leans towards me over the music.
MUINDI: If you have not experienced the matatu culture, that is the nganya culture, then you should never say that you are in Nairobi.
IGUNZA: The light changes. Kimani eases forward, the bass throbs again.
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IGUNZA: Riding one isn't just commuting. It's like being inside the city's pulse. For NPR News, I'm Emmanuel Igunza in Nairobi.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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