CYRUS KABIRU, JUA KALI GENIUS

Cyrus Kabiru is such a humble man, the public might never know that he is globally-acclaimed as well as being the artist who created all the'junk’ radios being shown as part of the Goethe institute exhibition-installation, ‘Amplitude of sounds” featured last August 2023. It was curated by a cast of eight who apparently forgot to attribute the radios’ creator, this jua kali giant, Kabiru. Don’t expect any complaint coming from Cyrus however. He has got too much on his mind to give his lack of attribution a second thought. He has already received so much adulation from elsewhere, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York which recently acquired one of his radios. And that is just one of the many cultural capitals on the planet where his radios, ornamental ‘C-specks’ or spectacles, and Black Mamba bikes have been appreciated. His public lecture, given in LA on ‘Giving Junk a second life’ is even on YouTube. But part of Kabiru’s appeal for me is his fascinating life story which you can see revealed through his art in both two- and three- dimensional forms. Each reflects a different facet of his life, including generations that preceded him. For instance, his jua kali radios relate to his grandfather who was the first person in their village in Murang’a to own a short-wave radio. “Every evening ten minutes before 6pm, neighbors would come to our home just to listen to BBC‘s Swahili version of the News of the world,” Cyrus told BDLife when we met recently at One Off Gallery. The radio shaped villagers’ mind-sets, he said, so that if they heard about Oxford University from there, they would vow to send their child to Oxford. That went on until AM/FM radio arrived in Kenya and his ‘Guka’ got one of them. “After that, he handed down his trusty shortwave to my father who in turn eventually handed it down to me,” Cyrus said, noting that Guka’s radio was actually in the Goethe show. He received it while still commuting between Murang’a and Korogocho (near the giant junk yard) where he grew up but was sent to stay with his grandparents for fear that he’d ‘get lost’ like his friends who Cyrus said, today are either in jail, drug dealing, or dead. That decision to shift him out of town was a life-changer for Cyrus. He had already found his love of art in primary school where he’d draw caricatures of his classmates and would get paid in pennies. So, by the time he got to rural areas, he was prepared to get to work. The only problem was he had no art materials. But he found them amidst the junk that people throw away, starting with bottle tops which he could easily get from local bars. By the time we first met Cyrus at Kuona Trust, he was already creating smashed bottle top sculptures like the giant crocodile which he’d shaped with chicken wire and flattened bottle top“I had guys go to local bars and collect the tops for me,” he told me back then. He said he wanted to create art that spoke to him, like the radios he eventually made, after he’d become world famous with his C-Specks, and which also had a family story associated with them. Like the guka who wouldn’t allow anyone to touch his radio, Cyrus’s dad wouldn’t allow him to touch his spectacles. As a result, the fruit of that suppression became the inspiration for Cyrus to create his own glasses, which he named C-specks after the public took note of his unique form of sculpted ornamental eye-ware. As it got more intricate, symmetrical, and beautifully original, it was ever-worn by the artist (like a model) whenever his C-Specks were being photographed. They were then shared online, and shown in international art centres, magazines, and even by big-name Black musicians who wore his C-specks on popular African American publication. In the process, Cyrus has been invited everywhere from Hollywood and New York City to London, Berlin, Milan, Tokyo, and even Cape Town where the brand new Zeizz Museum of Modern Art gave him an entire room to showcase his C-Specks. His art is also represented in Cape Town by one of the leading galleries there. Meanwhile, Cyrus had already started developing his Black Mamba bicycle series, based on the bicycle his dad wouldn’t allow him to ride. Again, he decided to create his own jua kali bike in his own style. Another unique creation was born, which also grabbed global attention. But it’s still the C-specks that have gained the greatest attraction and hurled him into an international spotlight that few Kenyans know about since Cyrus is still a humble man, even as he has opened up his studio to apprentices whom he mentors up to now.