He is back for some unfinished business in a town that made him. Kisumu.
WHEN YOU SING TO THE FISHES
The Story
Can a man, an artist, ever truly outrun his past?
Guitarist Otis Dinos returns to Kisumu, the magnetic town that shaped him. In the ‘80s, he was a legend—his explosive mix of hard benga and rumba gave birth to a generation of fans and made him famous. But after a tragic exit twenty years ago, everything fell apart. Now, at forty-seven, he’s back, haunted by the ghosts of his bandmates and a life of excess.
Guitarist Otis Dinos is back in Kisumu, the addictive and possessive lakeside town. Back in the ‘80s, he was the Urban Benga guitar legend. His commercially potent mix of hard benga and lofty rumba was loud with a culture surrounding it, and a cult-like following. It ignited an entire generation of music fans. It made him rich and famous.
When he left Kisumu twenty years ago, it was a sudden unpleasant event. Everything ended in tragedy. He was twenty-nine years and at his peak. Today he still is the artsy man: the musician, the guitarist. People have died fast; the men and women who helped him make music… they have all died or wasted away... all perished. Is he about to perish too? What is left? The past has unfulfilled dreams, good life, nice cars, easy money, expensive perfumes, glamorous women, living on the road and on stage and in the studios. And conniving bandmates, thieving promoters and clever pirates.
The present is bearable but holds no promise: he is forty-seven. If he has to accept his forced retirement, he has to learn to be a local Kisumuan, not the famous name. He reminisces about the romantic encounters of the ‘70s. The future is uncertain. He is searching for sanity and happiness. Happiness? In Kisumu lives the woman whose unfulfilled love still dwells in his heart. But his mind is too bamboozled to even think.
REVIEWS
A compelling exploration of fame and its toll, this novel takes readers on a journey through the gritty underbelly of Kisumu’s music scene. Otis Dinos, a once-celebrated guitarist, returns to confront his past and rediscover what’s left of his soul. With a hauntingly rich narrative and vivid characters, this story reveals the true cost of living in the spotlight.
—GORDON ONDIEK, FORMER MANAGER OF DR. COLLELA MAZEE
An evocative and introspective narrative, this book explores the haunting legacy of a rock legend who returns to his roots. The story of Otis Dinos is both poignant and powerful, capturing the essence of struggle and redemption in the vibrant backdrop of Kisumu’s music scene. A must-read for fans of music and deep character studies.
—TABU OSUSA, KETEBUL MUSIC
CHAPTER EXCERPT
UNEXPECTED expectation it was.
It came as a powerful and relentless dream that was as limber as kamongo mudfish wriggling through your hands. On the day I had another fishy dream, that night in 1992, my nogoodnik brother died. Mama went to church to pray in meek supplication, crying out to the heavens in rapture. I fell apart. My heart ached like the rhythm of conga drums. If I dreamed about fish, something bad happened. Somebody died.
***
Mama nyar gi nera, mama sister of uncles, is tormented about it. And she’s happy at the same time. She announces that she is now ready to die too, herself. She keeps hoping Agwenge will walk in through the door. She dreams he is still here beside her while he is now gone away. Then she remembers how she found herself plagued by his terrifying ayaki. She raises her arthritic hands in despair. She twists her lips, tsking the way Nigerian women do in their movies. “He’s free at last,” she mutters in Dholuo. “Ei. Yawa. Thu! Let him go and rest, owada.” The melancholia of Agwenge’s stupefying ayaki must have been unbearable. Is he free of it now? Amazing how his death quickly dissipated Mama’s concerns and worries. She mutters, “Wuololo! Yayee!” as if not believing he’s gone. She had loved him too fiercely, as if bewitched.
Now she sings hymns with tender reverence, in a very sad voice, culling out the most heartrending sound anyone could hear, cuddling the lyrics of the old hymns in them with such grace and giving. She’s been crying off and on. I fear she will jump from the pier of Pandpieri one fine sunny day and that she will find him confined to the bottom of the deep murkiness of Lake Victoria. Seriously, Agwenge’s death sent me into a tizzy. And now he lives as is, a frightening comic jigsaw puzzle of what he once was; memories made over, taken apart, thoughts that do not fit but are slammed together, wedged together, making no sense. Memories of his once-radiant face remain; the once-seen kingdom of happiness that was like a glade from his childhood long ago nestled in a network of jokes and joys that used to be between us. Now those jokes and joys are a girdle of insubstantial thickness that surrounds me and cinches around my memories tightly, remnants of minds turned inside out and parboiled.
I was devastated and in turmoil for all my twenty years in the land of white souls. That I was responsible for his death? Well, people talked and pointed fingers. My family, especially. But they never asked me. I am the fertility of their own paltry lack of money. A board on which they sketched their dreams, their fears, and their need for a culprit. I was the bright sand beneath their restless feet, marked and remade at will. But face it: I was a cockleshell hero to begin with. I had been blessed with a stout creative mind and an unyielding spirit… more than sufficient to see me through my Kisumu life. But I was nothing really; an artist who was forever getting it wrong on purpose. Didn’t I do things that put people in strife and made me run out of town? Like that nifty faux pas against Kanu in 1991? Admittedly, I wasn’t the best music maker, but I always dreamed I would reach my life peak as a guitarist and a band leader standing outside a 48-track studio with my name on it in Kisumu one day. But know what they say? When you’re busy forging the future, there’s always going to be some collateral damage.
I deem nothing at this point. I realize nothing at this juncture of life and death; my life is the darkness from the murk of light of fish-landing mornings at Dunga. I weep for my brother as if there were nothing left to live for other than a miracle ceding; as if that were a possibility. I remember how we used to read books with a nyangile kerosene lamp at dala in Pandpieri once upon a time. My countenance clouds and my eyes are rent with tears. Agwenge used to bury his head in my chest while we slept on our parched cowhide mat. He sometimes peed on me, and I scolded him, and he cried. He was always what he was... a little brother. When we ate omena and fulu fish with kuon bel millet and cassava bread on one single plate, he was slow in chewing and swallowing, while Ouru and I chewed with all our teeth and gobbled all the food inside to feed the tapeworms and ran to play outside while Agwenge cried to Mama and asked for more.
We grew up in Pandpieri and he followed me. I became his keeper and fended for him lest the hyenas ate him. I fought for him and provided for him like a brother, knowing it would be a good thing of comfort, of sanity, of brotherly love. But he always made me mad wearing my clothes and following me around. He just followed me bolingo, into void, into emptiness, into nothingness. Then he died, and I was made to accept culpability. I was told that he believed in me more than a brother, with all the hopes that fell like firelock tops at him, that reeled him with wreaths of powdery madness and screams in the nighttime hours at our dead zones where nyawawa demons only prowl.
I was the smart one; I survived. He was the dumb one; he died. I was always the smart one. In Kisumu, I was chosen along with a selection of benga masters of the guitar, like Collela. And everywhere I went playing guitar in nightclubs with my band, Agwenge followed. He stumbled on my footsteps with no foresight of his own, like a small dog running after a bigger dog. He joined me on stage at Olindas in Kondele, which reeked of sweat, cheap perfume, cigarette smoke, cheap booze, and moldable shadows of all the sick desperation that came to call here. So we entertained a rotating smorgasbord of weird, random Kisumu revelers. We did not know tomorrow was coming up, or that the sidewalk outside the antiquated pithole-ashamed bar was so cracked that many people fell on it, tripped, and fell even at high noon and in the dark of the night. The lyrics of our songs were water caresses of scared fish come to feed, knowing they would be tricked themselves even more. The ultimate gag line our fans feared all their lives was coming to dig up the meaning behind our songs, and that this was not even a town of cheap, gilded gimcracks; that this was Kisumu compared to the hell they would descend to in about a half second on the express elevator that has been going down from the Fall day, and on which even hardcore sinners fear to ride.
BUY WHEN YOU SING TO THE FISHES FROM THESE STORES
Bio
I'm Okang’a Ooko—a novelist and senior book designer with deep roots in publishing, storytelling, and design. I specialize in helping publishers and agents deliver polished, compelling books that resonate with their markets. Whether you’re producing high-volume titles or championing a first-time author, my design solutions ensure your books look as powerful as the stories they tell, captivating readers, and reflecting professional quality from cover to final page. As an author, my novels explore history, politics, culture, music, love, and identity—told through emotionally rich, character-driven narratives that captures nostalgia, societal conflict, and the personal struggles of those facing change and disconnection. Read more »
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