Story

Gibby, whose full name is Gibson Ndirangu is a father to Kalya and husband to Faith Ndirangu. He currently works as a Structural Engineer in Westie (Westlands, in Nairobi Kenya) and stays in Limuru. He loves the serenity of the sub-urban leafy areas.

Gibby is the musical genius behind 5Oh1 as he is known to have countless harmonies in his head and is quick to add a harmony to any song the group conjures up. And to enhance his title as the musical genius for the group, Gibby is considered by his brothers in the group as “one of the best song writers ever!” He has written concepts for many of the 5Oh1 songs that have done well on the charts including ‘Nimechoka’ and ‘Siwezi’. Gibby also plays the keyboard.

With such credentials it's only naturally that he is 5Oh1's music co-coordinator which means that he has the role of evaluating the music written by the various members and basically giving guidance and ideas to the rest as to the best way to do it.

A generally quiet guy and by extension a bit mysterious, Gibby is mostly drawn to, and you would say he prefers, Swahili or sheng’ (slang) music. He really does not like writing or even performing English songs. If not Swahili, he’d prefer it be African, at least.

Gibby is part of the original 5Oh1 , that is when 5Oh1 was composed of five people then two left and one other joined (not necessarily in that order).He, along with Kevo & Muts were at the very begin of what is now 5Oh1 . Gibby and Kevo were childhood friends who reunited in campus after very long, while Gibby and Muts were together in High school and met up again in campus.

Gibby had a little training in music while in high school. His knowledge in music proved to be very valuable to the “rookies” the other members were at the point of inception. Slowly Gibby and Kevo together with Mutua and the other two, discovered the similar interest in music and started singing in the room whose number is 501 (hence the name 5Oh1).

Gibby is not a lone ranger, so he has not done any projects apart from 5Oh1 . In fact any new idea he gets, he usually pictures the whole group in it and how the delivery will be done.

5Oh1’s latest single ‘Nakiri’ was originally written by Gibby and he has written so many more whose recording should be underway soon.

Photos by Mutua Matheka .
Check out his website www.mutuamatheka.co.ke/

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