The big year that was 2021 for Kenya's rising star, Trio Mio

The rapper started his music career in 2019 when he released his first song ‘Vile Inafaa’/Bazeng produced by JB.

He hit the Kenyan airwaves massively when he released his song ‘Cheza kama wewe’ in 2020, which became an even bigger hit after he remixed the song with Mejja, Exray, and Nellythegoon.

The teenage singer’s fame slowly started spreading like a rumour through social media platforms, with social media critics and fans comparing the young musician to the long-deceased Kenyan legend and icon in the music industry, Issah Mmari Wangui known as E-Sir.

The 17-year-old rapper has so far released hit songs such as ‘Cheza kama wewe’ ‘Vumilia’ ‘Bazenga-vile inafaa’, the current hit song in Kenya, Exray's ‘Sipangwingwi’ and the list is still growing.

This is only his second year in the Kenyan music industry and the teenager has already taken over and even the Kenyan politicians seem to agree, although that is not to say much.

His latest performance, which was a big move in his career was during a political event where he received an invite to perform at Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga's Azimio la Umoja rally on December 10.

According to the young rapper, this was by far his greatest achievement of 2021.

"Iyo ndio feeling sijawai have kwa maisha yangu yote, mi sijawai perform kwa set ya stadium...wasee walikuwa wengi..." he said.

Trio Mio's genre of music is Gengetone, a genre that has received a lot of controversial stands from music critics and government institutions.

Gengetone has been termed as unsultry because of its ‘vulgar’ words particularly by former Kenya Film and Classification Board (KFCB) CEO Ezekiel Mutua, who had a lot of criticism towards gengetone music.

“Those kids who do Kidungi and bongi genje or whatever, ni Watoto wa nani? Are their parents proud of them...” he previously tweeted about Gengetone

However, the music is loved and consumed by most Kenyans, many of who believe that gengetone is the cure to the long ailing music industry in Kenya.

Through gengetone, rapper Trio Mio who is also currently in school doubles between saving the Kenyan music industry and working towards getting his K.C.S.E certificate.

Trio Mio has said before that he started rapping at the age of ten, where he rapped to songs of his favorite artists.

He was also able to finally start recording songs due to the Covid-19 pandemic that saw the closure of schools in 2020. 

“I’ve been rapping since I could talk. Just kidding. I started rapping at the age of 10, At the time, I was rapping along to songs by my favorite artists,” Trio Mio said in an interview with the Standard.

“Watching my brother and his friends rapping to instrumentals on YouTube is what inspired me to take it seriously, that’s when I started to compose my own songs. The pandemic allowed me time to record these songs since schools were closed,” he said.

The rapper’s star is still shining bright, his ambition, once he is done with school is to collaborate with Kenyan artists such as Khaligraph Jones and Otile Brown, to get a more diversified fanbase and also Tanzanian Diamond Platnumz, who will give him a more African fanbase.