About Juacali
Juacali is a Genge hip-hop artist who has been writing rap lyrics since his high school years. He grew up in California estate in Eastleigh, Nairobi.His music is a reflection of where he comes from. He believes that artists should be ambassadors of their own communities. In most of his lyrics, he is always paying homage to his estate “Cali”. In fact, the first part of his name “Cali” is a derivation from “California”, while the last part of the name “Jua” is a Swahili word which means sun . His name thus means the “sunny California” hinting to the optmism and bright future he sees for his community. Eastleigh is in the Eastlands or the East side of the Nairobi city which is comprised of the Kenyan working and unworking class. His music thus reflects the values and culture of these two social classes. The message in his music is about fighting for social justice and ending of socio-economic inequalities in the country. Other common themes in his music is youth and self empowerment. He uses himself as an example by showing the Kenyan youth and the unworking class that they can achieve what they want if they work hard.The song Bidii Yangu is a good example that carries this message.
The languages used in his raps are Kiswahili and Sheng. Juacali is a strong believer that your language is your identity and culture and this should be reflected in your music. He is also on a bigger mission of language preservation through his music. It is not surprising that he wrote about the language of Kenyan youth in Kuna Sheng . He says "artists can use the music genre to preserve language just the same way language historians do it in books."