Gorgeous singer Victoria Kimani is Chocolate City’s First Lady. Victoria has been breaking new grounds in the music industry with her sexy looks and sonorous music. Though, Born in Los Angeles, California, United States, Victoria grew up into music. Music has always been a part of Victoria’s family; her dad used to be a guitarist back in the day. VK, as she is fondly called by her fans, has always been in love with music and even started to write, record and perform some of her music at the age of 16. As she grew older, so did her sound and over the next couple of years she traveled between Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York and London, working with a few top artists and producers including Chris Brown, Diggy Simmons


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Can you tell us how music started for you?



I remember just singing around the house and my parent would play gospel music a lot around the house so I would try to sing along to the songs they would play, and they play people like C.C Winans and B.B Winans like real black American gospel singers with their voices. It is crazy so I would just try to sing along and of course I would fail most of the time, so I just kept practicing and practicing and then one day, I was washing dishes and I was singing and my dad came home from work and he caught me and he was like whooh! I don’t know you were there and I was like what! And he said you have a beautiful voice and I was like really! I was so embarrassed; I didn’t want to sing in front of him again because I think I didn’t really know I could sing. I just knew I like singing at that point and I was probably seven or eight then because I knew I was really young. From there, my dad got me a tape recorder like one of those little cassettes, you put the cassette in and you press record. I would record myself in the closest record myself to listen to myself to see whether I can actually sing and then, I started writing poetry and then I would try to make those word rhyme and then I would start writing songs to the gospel music that was played. I would try to write my own words to what was going on out there. When I turned 16 I recorded my first song; it was called how I feel, it was the most impressive song that you would ever hear. I just kept recording while I was still 16 almost turning 17. I started singing back-up for famous Kenya singer, her name is Mercy Maira. Mercy Maira was like Onyeka Onwenu of Nigeria; she was like that in Kenya at that time, it was at the peak of her career. She is a Kenyan woman from Ameru tribe, which is different from my tribe. I am Kikuyu, so I had to learn sounds and loo and I had to also learn all her songs literarily in two weeks. She was a friend of my brother; my brother was like can you audition my little sister? She really want to sing and I went in, I auctioned for her, I sang for her and she said I like your voice, you really look okay. But I’m going on tour in the next two weeks, so if you want to work in this business you need to work hard you have two weeks to learn the album, which had like 16 songs and all the dance moves that come with it I learnt everything. We went to Bukina Faso, Tanzania; we went all over Kenya, performing. That was the beginning of my music career.

Take the music from Victoria Kimani, how would you describe yourself?

I would describe myself as a slightly rebellious person, an eccentric person. I think I’m an eccentric person because I do like to express myself outwardly. I don’t know if that makes sense, I get really bored if I have the same hair style. I am the doing-it-your self-type of person. I don’t really wait for people to do things for me. I used to have this conversation with upcoming artists, even now that I’m signed unto Chocolate City, I do a lot of things myself because I don’t believe again in waiting for a lot of people to do things for me and that goes down to hair and make-up. I used to be a make-up artist at one point, so I just learned how to do things for myself. To break it down, I would say I’m a little bit rebellious and eccentric fashion creative person, and I’m an independent do-it-yourself-kind-of-person.

As a young Kenyan taking over the industry, with your kind of music, your style, your attitude towards your song, what inspires all of that?

Before I signed into Chocolate City, I knew I wanted to come back home. Home, I mean Africa in general. I knew that if I went to Kenya it could be cool but everyone knows right now in terms of music industry and entertainment in general, Nigeria is really like Hollywood. If you look at it, if you compare it to like America, Nigeria would literarily be like Hollywood of Africa or what Hollywood or Los Angeles is to the industry and to the rest of America. So I said I need to find myself here because there are so many talented people here, and there is an industry that actually works here. There is so much of the youth that are so interested in music, the media and everybody so interested in music. This is not to bash Kenya or anything like that. Recently there was a statistic that came out that about fifty-five percent of the youth in Kenya are interested in music, but in Nigeria it is like seventy two percent, which is huge because they are over two hundred million people. And Kenya has only fifty million, so just thinking about things from the outside looking in, I need to go back home and I need to become a pan-African artist, which is someone who is able to move round the continent, and not only be in one place and not only be at home in Kenya. So that was the vision coming in here and I think it’s true, there is really life in the depth of the power of the tongue. Whatever you say you truly want, I think it would surely come to pass, and almost three years later I can say ‘am getting closer to my goal but there is still a lot of work to do.

Are you aware that in Nigeria you are seen as a sex symbol?

Well unfortunately, it’s not really unfortunate. Well I don’t think that is a bad thing, I think ‘am aware of that.

How do you feel about it?

Well that one to be a feminist, I’m very proud of it, because it is like why should I have to apologise for holding on to what is mine? I could choose to wear a hijab and cover it up, or I could choose to wear what I want to wear and flaunt what I have, not necessary flaunt. I don’t really look at it as an expression, this is me, so if people look at it like and say you are a sex symbol or this sells sex, or that it is their ideal of sex, I think it is that person that needs some examining to do because it is not that I put it up there. I never put anything that is too rusty in my mind anyway. I think it depends on who you ask. If you ask someone who is extremely religious if you ask my mum, what she thinks about some pictures, I can have full clothing and she would say you are completely naked and some other people would say this is totally fine. I think it just depends on who you ask.

When did you move to Nigeria?

While the mission work was in Nigeria, we came in 1999 and we left in 2001, we stayed for 2 years; we stayed in Benin City.

How did your parent take it as you were the only girl and doing music, how did they take that talent of yours?

I think they liked it because you know I was expressing myself through art, I was also into painting. I would paint, I would sing around the house. My dad was also a musician before he became a pastor, he was a musician, and he was singing with the Afro’s and the Baboons in the seventies. He was singing all this pastiche songs at bars, getting into fights with promoters at bars, he was that guy in the seventies even till these days when you talk to some older men they say I remember your dad. He was a hot shot back in the seventies before he became a pastor. So they knew they have given birth to an artistic person. Like I said it was never an issue I don’t remember it been an issue like I said there was one time I wanted to pierce my nose, of course I was too young in the States (US) at that time, you have to be eighteen to go and get any kind of piecing or go with a family member or parent and I pieced it myself. It was ridiculous! One of the stupidest thing I ever done and I showed my dad and he said it was nice, it was cool. I expected him to beat me real good when he saw that, but he didn’t; so when that happened I said I wondered what I couldn’t get away with. So in a couple of years, I remember piecing my tongue which I don’t have any more. I took it out and even when he saw that he was like what is in your mouth spilt it out. I had to confess because I had to hide it for a long time. I told him it was actually a new thing and he was like it’s okay. He didn’t really say anything. I don’t think that bothers him as much as if am doing something bad, or if I do something bad at school or if I’m failing exams. I think they understand the difference between a good kid who is a little wild and a bad kid who is going all over the place doing crazy things.

So you are good and wild?



I think I’m a little different, I mean I have a green hair.

Have your parents at any point in time watched any of your video and especially the show?

I don’t know if they have seen the show.

So what was their expression like?

I remember my dad saw my first video in total and he was like waooh! The first thing he said was the quality is really nice. I don’t think he expected to see that quality. There is a part where I was walking down a run way when I turned around and you could see a little bit of my bum, I stopped the video before we got to that point. So I don’t think he has seen anything bad. So far he says this looks good.

Can we say your father is your friend?

My dad is a cool man; he is a funny guy, even as a pastor half of the time he is preaching people are laughing because he really knows how to relate with the people. He is a very cool guy.



Could you tell us about your fashion?

I work with a lot of different stylists, but sometimes, I style myself if somebody brings me something that I don’t think matches my personality or looks good on my body of course I’m not going to wear it. It is not like ‘am been forced to wear something. I do like to try different things and even if sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes I look at my picture back and forth; I would be like what was I actually thinking. But that is the cool thing about fashion it has another art form you could play around with it, you could go crazy, go conservative the next day, you could go safe, you could go unsafe, you could play with it but I do work with many different stylists and don’t have a particular stylist that I work with.

When do we get to see you do full-fledged Kenyan music?

That is a really good question. Kenyan music doesn’t necessary have a sound, the way Nigerian music have a sound. You can tell it a mile away that is Naija straight-up but Kenyan music’s always been very diverse, we have got different kind of artists like Wyhire who does Dance all, but it is been classified into Kenyans music. We have got artists like Jimoh Kahili, artists like Cligrapy, Abass, you properly don’t know of these names, but these are different Kenyan artists and even Soutisuhell. I know you have heard of them, you know what is cool about them they are very live acoustic type of band.

Should we expect some collabo between you and them?

Definitely, the thing I love about Kenyan music is that it does not have a sound but there is language that you can differentiate it from other countries’ music. You just do the language, do the singing in Swahili. The answer is yes you can expect me to release a completely Swahili song, but ‘am getting scared because I don’t know how it is going to get in on this side of the continent. So have been looking into different sounds and I already have some record that have a lot of Swahili in them but I don’t know if I can really call it Kenyan sound.

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