It has been a long and mostly painful road for Luo rapper Vicmass in his quest for recognition in the Kenyan music Industry. But through all the rejections, grits and grind, one fellow rapper who faced almost similar circumstances and emerged victorious has been silently giving him a hand.
That rapper is Octopizzo.
“He has been more than a mentor,” Vicmass, whose hit single’Bank Otuch’ remix that features Octopizzo is topping almost every Music chart in Kenya, said regarding his relationship with the Kibera MC.
“Octopizzo is like a dad to me. For eight years he has been mentoring me, assisting me whenever I hit a wall he was there. People just think I met him when we did the Bank Otuch remix but that’s just not correct.”
Vicmass says his relationship with Octopizzo started almost nine years ago but he officially met him in 2010 in Kisumu City which is also their home town.
Octopizzo, an orphan from Kibera who fought all odds into becoming one of the best rappers not only in Kenya but in Africa, probably saw himself in the struggling Vicmass who had lost his father and was drowning in poverty but still trying to keep his rap dreams alive. A connection was immediately established.
“We first met around 2011 in Kisumu at a club called Club Basement,” Vicmass recalls. “Since then the relationship has been growing and growing even after I moved to Nairobi, Kibera where part of my family is located. I have recorded over 40 songs since 2007 both locally and internationally and I have sent almost each and every one of them to him of which he gave me his honest opinion.”
However, for Bank Otuch remix, Octopizzo totally surprised him.
“When I asked fans who they wanted me to remix my song with, they picked him. To my surprise, Octo had liked the song long ago and already made his verse so when I approached him I found him waiting for me.”
