Vinniebanton

Born Vincent Ihaji Serebwa in 1979 Nairobi, Kenya.The last born of the family, enrolled in primary school at 7 years. While pursuing his education, his interest in music grew especially in dancehall music due to the fact that ragga beat has been borrowed from the drum beating which is phenomenon in our African traditional songs. In the early stages Vinni loved listening to Jamaican Ragga Star, Buju Banton who inspired him by his style of music. This made Vinni realise his own potential as a s...

Born Vincent Ihaji Serebwa in 1979 Nairobi, Kenya.The last born of the family, enrolled in primary school at 7 years. While pursuing his education, his interest in music grew especially in dancehall music due to the fact that ragga beat has been borrowed from the drum beating which is phenomenon in our African traditional songs. In the early stages Vinni loved listening to Jamaican Ragga Star, Buju Banton who inspired him by his style of music. This made Vinni realise his own potential as a singer, and soon adopted the Stage name Vinni Banton, idolising his mentors name Banton. During his secondary education between 1993 to 1997.He started registering in rap competitions and participating in gigs to earn extra money while in school. In 1997 after his O-levels, he took part in Rap competitions in discotheques with the likes of K-South, Flava, Porcupine, Intelligent Mush , etc. He won most of the competitions in the dancehall category. He was now confident of himself as a performing Artiste and decided to join Brick House Studios where he recorded his first collaboration with some of the signed artistes of the Studio in 1998. This resulted in the release of title, Mr Phat Stix. The single did not perform well on the local scene as about this time the local Music Industry was at its lowest and both Radio and Night Club DJ’s were not very keen on playing local stuff by the up and coming young Talent, as I guess the style and repertoire was not their cup of tea then. By early 1999 the local urban style of music started gaining prominence among the youth. The style was the in-thing for the younger generation, they could relate to it so they wanted to listen, dance and associate themselves with it. As a result the pressure was on, the Media houses had no option but to 'give the people what they want', Air Play was gaining momentum, Clubs and Mtaani Gigs were belting out the new sounds and the Matatus did the rest. They identified themselves with the sounds, blasting them in their Sleek Matatus Turbo sound systems. Capitalizing on this and his popularity of Rap and Dancehall among the youth together with his experience in performing in competitions, he teamed up with Mr Googz and joined Ogopa Deejays Studios. Here they recorded a fusion of both hip hop and ragga and in November released a single titled 'Wasee' which became an instant 'hit'. The single remained in the charts for long making it a wonder hit, gaining a greater audience not only in East Africa but the rest of Africa. The song became the first ever by an East African, from the region nominated for the prestigious 'African Kora Awards', South Africa in 2002 as the most 'promising song' of the year. This was big for Vinni & Mr Googz, times were good and audiences’ great, he went on to perform in Concerts in The East African States, South Africa, and Atlanta, Georgia, USA. In 2003 he released another single with Mr Googz, 'Superstar', which was nominated and won the 'East African Kisima Awards' held in Kenya in August of that year. Between 2004 and 2005 he worked and performed with several Artistes in East Africa, the likes of Bebe, Cool, Boyz . He later parted ways with Mr Googz so as to enable him work on his solo albums He took a break from 'Live' performances on the music scene so as to fully concentrate on his album. In 2006 he was entered into a music competition in Germany dubbed 'Stars in the City'. At this competition Vinni emerged as the only African Artiste in the best top ten. This achievement earned him a spot for his compilation with some of the best European artistes and was a great success for his album 'Straight from Githurai'. Later in 2006, with producer Cedo of South -West studios, he released singles, 'Dance with Me' and 'My Baby' as a prelude to promoting his debut album that is set to be released on August 18th 2007. Vinni Banton is back and back in a big way, in the pipeline he has eyes set on an International Tour and hopefully this time around exploiting the International market to its fullest. He says, "To all my fans, get ready for the Real Me" and to his critics, "You aint seen nothing yet".