ESCAPE
Sitawa Namwalie – Book and Lyrics, L-Ness (Lydia Owano Akwabi) - Music and Lyrics
With Pius Shaki Aloyo, Mike Munene, Manases Waweru, Grand Masese, Odada Okutoto, Willy Rama, Edward Okuto
After a prison escape, an acrobat, who became a gangster, hides for 3 days and 2 nights inside the Warden’s house, entrancing the Warden’s wife with her 10-month old son. They all eventually escape from their situations, in a mesmerizing tale told in Sheng, Kiswahili and English and accompanied by a musical chorus that combines contemporary Kenyan techno-rap interwoven with traditional instruments into a purely Kenyan mix.
Writer & Composer Profiles
Lydia Owano Akwabi, Writer & Composer
L-NESS a.k.a Lioness a.k.a. is a Poet, Performing and Recording Emcee, Composer, African Hip Hop Cultural Specialist and Researcher.
Her albums are SIMANGWE (2011) themed ‘’Don’t Stop the Music’. GAL POWER (2012) about Girl Child and Women Empowerment. PUNCH (2014) a mix tape. RAPPERCUSSIONS (2015) with conscious poetry accompanied by Traditional Kenyan Musical Instruments and BOKO HER RHYMEZ -Viboko Kwenye Rhymez (2019-2020).
L-ness has performed and facilitated creative writing workshops in the region at festivals like WAPI (Words and Pictures), HIP HOP Hook Up, Kilio Cha Haki, PAU (Pamoja Amani Upendo), Maono Cultural Group, K-Day, HIP HOP Rhapsody Concerts, SAWASAWA festivals, Hip Hop Festivals, Story Moja Festivals, Turning Tables’ Unkut Qings Femcees Cyphers, Babishai Niwe Festival, Sauti Za Mabinti, Hip Hop Garage Battles, Cultural exchange projects with Goethe Institute like Spoken Worlds, The Chain Poem and Poesiefestival in Germany where she facilitated workshops in detention facilities to discuss Hip Hop and its connection to our African ways of storytelling.
She has lectured in Daystar University on the roles of women in African Hip hop and she translates poems and scripts into Sheng’ and Kiswahili.
Sitawa Namwalie , Writer & Composer
An award winning Kenyan poet, playwright and performer known for her unique dramatized poetry performances which combine poetry and traditional Kenyan music. “Cut off My Tongue,” her first performance was performed in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and at the Hay Festival 2009. In 2010 “Cut off my Tongue” was selected by the Sundance Theatre Lab in the first East African Sundance Lab held on Manda Island.
Sitawa’s growing body of work includes dramatized poetry productions and plays, “Homecoming” (2010), “Silence is a Woman”, (2014), “Black Maria on Koinange Street” and “Room of Lost Names” (2015), “Taking my Father Home” (2020).
Sitawa has worked with the United Nations and the World Bank and holds a BSC in Botany and Zoology from the University of Nairobi and an MA in Environmental Studies from Clark University, Massachusetts, USA.
Sitawa represented Kenya in tennis and hockey in her youth.