Celebrity death hoaxes are nothing new. Countless times, popular celebrities have been “killed and buried” only to be resurrected by the same weapon of murder- internet!
The most recent one is Tanzanian superstar Lucas Mkenda popularly known by his stage name Mr Nice, he has become the latest victim to be killed by the keyboard.
Famed for his many hit songs including ‘Kidali Po’ and ‘Fagilia’, singer has been struggling to make a comeback after years of obscurity. His fans were shocked to learn that Mr Nice was no more, they poured on social media in their numbers to post messages of condolence only to realise later that it was just a rumour, and a bad one at that.
Days later, the singer has addressed the rumours by condemning a new outlet for spreading the fallacy; (I hope you understand Kiswahili, this is East African Community)
He said:
“Sometimes to be silent is a very big answer for fool peoples….na bado mtaniombea sana mabaya lakini haitakuwa…kituo kikubwa cha habari kama East African vibes mnathubutu kuaminisha watu mambo ya uongo na ya kutengeneza bila hata kujali kuwa mnaniumiza vipi kwa upande wangu.
Mungu awarejeshee kadri ya mstahilivyo kwake. Hii si mara ya kwanza kunizulia kifo na mambo mabaya. Sijui nimewahi kuwakosea nini au ni kwa vile sinaga tabia za unyenyekeaji wa kinafki muacheni aliyeniumba aniamulie hatma ya maisha yangu please 13/12/2016″.
This loosely translated means:
“Sometimes silence is a big answer to fools… And even if they pray for bad things to happen to me, they wont. For a big media house like East African Vibes to go around spreading lies and not even caring about how much they affect me in the process…May God reward you accordingly. This is not the first time you are wishing death upon me. I do not know what it is that I did to you but I leave it up to Him to decide my fate 13/12/2016”
In similar incident, another lazy internet user killed Kenzo in his post before Kenzo resurrected on his post and squashed the rumours.
He claimed that the singer passed away in an accident. Kenzo today captioned the screen shot of the claim “Imagine someone out there their prayer is to see me in this condition.”
Word to a wise. Dont believe everything you see on the internet. You can’t trust what people smoke and sniff these days before logging into Facebook.