Pits to the palace! Celebrities who come from humble beginnings

Piece by: Euodia Bore
Lifestyle

Most Kenyans have a humble beginning and indeed our celebs are no exceptions.

Eko Dydda

Eko Dydda having lived in the Nairobi's Mathare ghettos has crawled through sludgy pipes, but came out smelling like roses.

“It was hard but there was little I could do about it. After all, I hailed from a humble background; getting enough food and good education was not guaranteed.”

He did menial jobs just to make ends meet after school. Which include working as a garbage collector for two years (2006- 2007) at Mathare North where he earned Sh30 per week. He also sold chapati and ‘madondo’ near Mathare Social Hall for a while.

Betty Bayo

She was once a house help within Kiambu town for two years. The fact that her parents were unable to cater for her school fees as a Form Two student forced her to do menial jobs in order to survive and also to save money to go back to school.

“My first employer who I served for a year (2006) paid me Sh70 per day for all the house chores. I felt this was little and decided to go mobile - still as a house help where I would be hired by anybody in need of my services for Sh100 per day.” She said

Working diligently she did save the money and paid her fees.

“Mine was a case of vision combined with hard work and never giving up easily. I sought God’s guidance and protection, which enabled me to overcome all the obstacles that stood my way.”

Despite this hard work, patience and determination have seen her rise from the trenches to a respected gospel artiste.

Daddy Owen

The gospel singer of today is by far the Daddy Owen who led an irresponsible life operating as a common thug (petty thief) within Nairobi’s CBD and Umoja area before getting saved from death late 2001.

Today, however, the born again Christian dubbed the top gospel musician has achieved immense fame as far as music goes besides having won several awards locally and internationally.

Churchill

The godfather of comedy has come a long way from his industrial area paycheck.

A leading radio presenter cum stand up comedian missed out on a career in football and took up studying the Bible at the World of Life College in Kabete.

At the time he lived in a room of Sh500 in which he shared with five other people. Every morning he would head for Nairobi’s Industrial area to clean bottles and lift timber for Sh115 a day.

Then one day, he attended an audition for a play after a lady he refers to as Christine asked him to audition, he qualified and earned Sh300 per show.

He had a stint at Citizen Radio where he featured as the perennially complaining Navdi Solanki and became an instant hit and onto Classic 105.

He was also part of the Public Noise Makers featuring Mshamba.

With this, he found himself in NTV’s ‘In Tru Kalas’. Today he is a producer with Heartstrings Kenya and author with the play, ‘This is Kenya’.

Githeri man

Martin Kamotho is well known as "Githeri Man" went viral in 2017 after he arrived at a polling station in the wee hours of the morning with a bag of ‘Githeri’.

He was praised and honoured for alleviating stress in the time when the country was going through a hard time.

His photos started to spread throughout the internet catching the attention of the president.

He received a lot of promises from different brands with some of them promising to dress him decently and support him in his business to keep him out of poverty.

He was also awarded the head of state commendation gift of Ksh 100,000.

However, the story that followed was a mystery he was found drunk and suffered from depression.

His story ended and only a few can remember him, but there is some report he is in rehab.