In this town, this dreary old town called Nairobi, or ‘Kanairo’, if you’re from the sleazier parts of town, exists a gung ho group of sordidly rich young brothers who shake up the city, cut dirty deals, brazenly walk into powerful offices and evade the police dragnet with daunting ease and wicked arrogance.
Huddled in their airy Roysambu Airbnbs, these modern-day Nairobi mobsters speak in euphemistic terms, as they sip on what remained of last night’s Veuve Clicquot, munch on freshly-made chicken wings, slurp on a cold drumstick and choke on a dying marijuana stick.
These are men conducting their lurid businesses with guileful hints and fiendish arrogance, scheming about who has gone too far, who to attack next, where to hide a stash and which powerful city honcho needs to be added to their criminal rigmarole.
They’re all over – you’ll catch them at that new joint along Kiambu Road, heftily-perched on their high seats as they cackle and bicker, loudmouthed and filthy-worded, like a bunch of drug barons in 1920s Chicago.
Dripping in stinking cash, these chieftains of brutal charm work their way around the girls, whose ersatz jewellery and wanderlust they can easily finance and whose Instagram fantasies they can quickly help materialize.
As they pass around the third bottle of a one-litre Martell VSOP, champagne glasses in their air, as they toast with cheeky grimaces and annoying cheerios, these Nairobi boys are unmistakable – they’re intimidating, irritating and unbearably overbearing.
Like characters straight from a Martin Scorsese movie, these boys, who range from around 23 to 34 years, strut around town as if they own it – they have little respect for traffic, for orderliness, for the little man and for the rule of law in general.
At only 24, some of these little mohines are already living in enviable neighbourhoods – in apartments where the marble-topped open kitchen overlooks a lush green view, with sweeping sitting rooms, a diabolically huge 65″ TV dangling from the wall, 100% linen double-layer rayon curtains, generic crystal chandeliers, patterned Verona carpets and a fully-stocked two-door Hisense pure flat refrigerator.
It’s their world and they run it with sheer abrasiveness and untamed avarice.
None of these boys have a formal job, in fact, most of them dropped out of campus to go run after a life of glitz and notoriety and now, less than five years later, these kids who eschewed campus are now stacking up prime real estate, flaunting a Mercedes Benz GLE coupe, drowning at least 16 bottles of Moet and Chandon on a rainy Tuesday night and sending a random viral kid on TikTok Ksh.100k for ‘groceries’.
After every little milestone, they take to Instagram, humble and surprisingly careful-worded, share the good news and simply type, ‘Ni God Manze’ (It’s God).
These boys, who just last week almost shot up an entire nightclub, who just last Monday almost drowned their rival in a heated pool, who just last month appeared on the DCI Twitter pages for robbery with violence, who just this morning cursed everyone and anyone out in a foul-mouthed TikTok LIVE, now suddenly attribute their minty success and dubious riches to ‘God’.
Highly secretive and dreadfully selfish, these monied Nairobi youngins will not let you in on their little path to success – when asked, they peddle the same tired line; ‘I do online writing, I sell bitcoins, I’m a YouTuber’.
On a good weekend, when the illicit dollars have kicked in and their victims have bled dry, these money-mad vampires explode into a violent drinking spree punctuated by sporadic gun-toting and ghastly scenes of perfectly-choreographed catastrophes.
And on a random Thursday, especially in Kilimani, you will hear of mafia-style fratricides carried out by the members of the same gang after a deal gone wrong. It then spellbinds the mainstream media for weeks on end.
Like Nigeria’s Hushpuppi before them, these Nairobi chaps have mastered the art of making a million shillings and making it ten times faster than the average salaried dude.
It might take some bloodshed, a death, a jail term or even the permanent fraying of family ties but if that comes with a fattened bank account, then these kids are viciously ready for the sacrifice.
Brilliant, shrewd and mercilessly unremorseful, Nairobi’s young millionaires are baying for blood – and they’re not afraid of pulling out the dagger and coming for your throat.
