I first heard Tempo in a Kenyan night club and then jumped on the remix

Since its release a few weeks ago, the remix of the track Tempo (on which our own Cindy features fast-rising Kenyan artiste Dufla) has quickly become a hit across East Africa. It has already spread across the continent, enjoying rotation on continental TV stations like MTV Base and Trace. Cindy told Matooke Republic about how she came to be part of the track.

Getting on the track
I was in a nightclub in Nairobi when I heard the original version of Tempo playing (I had gone to Nairobi to shoot my two upcoming videos, Still Standing and the other a collabo with Wahu). I immediately realised that the song was pleasantly different from my general stereotype of Kenyan music. Luckily I was with Refigha, the CEO of Grandpa Records, so I casually asked him about the song, and to my surprise he told me that his studio was behind the track and that they were even looking for someone like me to feature on a remix version. He told me to try it out and see if I could do it. The next day I had decided to feature on the remix.

Recording the remix
The following day I entered studio and we straight away began work on the song. In about an hour I’d finished writing and recording my vocals and what was left was for the producers to master the sound of the whole song, which they did in two days. Then next day we got to do the video shoot, which we did in about 14 hours running from morning till late.

The message
The message is about a guy wanting to date a girl but is taking too long to reveal his feelings. The words “Utashika hiyo tempo” mean “Pull up your tempo,” and it is the message of the girl I play on the song calling upon the guy (Dufla) to up his tempo and quickly declare his intentions. Maybe I should add that I easily fell into the mood of the song because as a person I also like a guy after me to be straight without wasting my time.

How I rate the song
It’s quite impossible for me to compare my music against each other, because it is all different yet each is special to me in its own way. But let me say that I love the song, for its own reasons. The audio is very good–I love how the Kenyans master music. And the video is also great, especially as we did it in a very short time. Of course I feel that if we’d had more time to spend on the video, it would have been much better and featured more scenes, but that’s what we could do in the time we had. As it’s already hitting across the continent. It’s all good.