P.O.P has been ripping up the Kenyan music scene for almost two decades and is one of the country’s original Dancehall and Hip Hop pioneers.  

P.O.P was born in the late 1970s in Kisauni, a ghetto in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa. He started singing in his local church before he discovered dancehall and started Djing with a sound system called Deh Mension Mega Sound in the early 1990s. 

In 1996 he founded the band Ukoo Flani alongside Nguchi-P, Fujo Makelele and Doctor Dunga, all fellow Mombasans. After a few years performing between Mombasa and Nairobi they released their first album Recipe za Nazi in 2001.

The beginning of the 2000s saw him release singles like Mademu wa Mitaa, Mizuka, Mitaa and Kama Nalia Kumbe Nacheka, all which made it to the Kenya charts. In 2007 the second Ukoo Flani album, Kaya HipHop was released and with the huge success of the single Burn Dem, Ukoo Flani were catapulted into the spotlight and became a overnight sensation in the East African urban scene.

More recently P.O.P has been involved in the BLNRB project which saw three high-profile bands from Berlin – Modeselektor, Gebrüder Teichmann and Jahcoozi, come to Nairobi to create a compilation collaborating with some of Kenya’s biggest club names. The Kenyan artists later travelled to Berlin where they recorded a second album that is yet to be released.  

In the last few years P.O.P has also been involved in two documentaries: Maskaani Flani (2008) and Twende Berlin (2011). 

In 2009 P.O.P started a project called Kichaja, aimed at discovering local Mombasan talent. An album by the same name was borne out of the project and through the proceeds P.O.P helped found a local performing arts academy in his neighbourhood, called the Kichaja HipHop Academy.

P.O.P stands for Person Of People, Polite Ordinary Person or Pwani Old Product - depending on who’s asking. 

P.O.P’s first solo album – Popular Demand, is set to be released in July 2012

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