She sits like a rose among the thorn trees, Sheila Mwanyigha does, at the Thorn Tree restaurant at the Sarova Stanley. Her voice, when she greets one, is soft and lilting, tinkling, musical, reminiscent of the tintinnabulation of a pretty chapel’s bells.
Not surprising, when you consider that Sheila Mwanyigha gets her bacon from being a ‘voice’ on radio, as an MC, musician (nom de guerre, Nikki), and as a presence on television.
“That is the good thing with being a quadruple threat,” I tease the quadruple threat, “You’re not with Tusker Project Fame (TPF) as a hostess this year, but like changing costumes, you got a breakfast show,”
Sheila laughs, eyes lighting up.
“Talking of breakfast, shall we order tea and sandwiches, perhaps?” It is teatime, three thirty in the afternoon.
Sheila politely makes our order (wine for her, voda-cola for this writer, sandwiches all around) from the steward, Machel.
“As the daughter to two cops —late dad, living mom— and the sibling to a brother in the military, I thought you would bark out your order,” I comment.
I ask her about socialites like the ‘Boss Lady’ Huddah Njoroge. With a twinkle in her eye, she sighs before noting that everyone has to decide for themselves how they wish to be perceived in the public eye: how you get, and how you use, your fifteen minutes in the spotlight.
She would know, having been in the public eye for a long time, more than some can recall – Sheila does not exactly recoil at the question of age, but she did have a big birthday cake on TV recently which a Sherlock can deduce any number that ends with a zero (personally, I would go for 30) – she certainly has a bird’s eye view on the celebrity industry.
“I started singing as Nikki when I was in campus, with the likes of Jimmi Gathu, doing Mapenzi Tele in 1997. Tedd Josiah encouraged me to do commercials, and with the cash I made, I just didn’t buy clothes (although I did buy a few), but helped my mom pay fees for my kid brother, as well as pay my own at campus.”
A true believer in the saying ‘when God closes one door, he opens a window,’ Sheila Mwanyigha is a master burglar … never having seen a window of opportunity that she didn’t clamber through.
Having not had the funds to go to New York University to pursue her Masters’, in 1999 she heard a new radio station (KISS) was opening its airwaves, she rushed for the interview where one von Voggs hired her, in spite of her ‘Nikki-esque’ belly button piercing at the time, and she ended up working with radio tsarinas like Caroline Mutoko.
Sheila was like a duck thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool, with only four days of intense training before hitting the airwaves. But Miss Mwanyigha was a natural.
Seven years later, she was united with Phil Matthews at Capital 98.4 FM. These days, her soft voice and gentle humour grace the airwaves
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