The Madness that is the ‘Tenuous Link’

The Tenuous Link is a feature on Tallia Oyando’s mid morning show on HBR which basically involves me linking two people together but two people who have little or nothing in common. Actually, mostly just nothing in common.

I get a lot of questions about how I get these done and whether I use google or not and so to answer these two questions, I’m going to say, ‘tenuously’ and ‘occasionally’ respectively.

It’s quite the task but a task that got simpler and simpler as time went by (I mean I’ve done about twenty on air already). Tallia will normally pick two names at random then give me a couple of minutes to come up with a way they in which they are tenuously linked.

Here are two that I have done so far

Miley Cyrus and Ngina Kenyatta 

Miley was born in Nashville Tennessee

Nashville Tennessee, which is known for its country music,

Country music which has long since been connected to people of color,

People like Charlie Pride who was one of the first black super stars,

A super star that influenced major singer Roger Whitiker,

Roger Whitiker who sang that song ‘My Land is Kenya’,

And ‘My Land is Kenya’ came out during Jomo Kenyatta’s rule,

And Jomo Kenyatta was Ngina Kenyatta’s husband,

Ngina whose son is Uhuru Kenyatta,

Uhuru who is a dad to a daughter who is in her twenties,

In her twenties just like Miley Cyrus

Lil Wayne and Martha Karua (don’t give me that look. Tallia is the one who comes up with these links)

Dwayne Michael Carter is a rapper born in New Orleans,

New Orleans which is known as the birth place of Jazz,

Jazz which is believed to be a sub genre of rap,

Rap which is said to have started in the Bronx,

The Bronx which is a town within New York City,

New York, home to baseball team ‘The Yankees’,

And the Yankees are said to be in business with another Carter, Jay Z,

Jay Z who has been an open supporter of President Barack Obama,

Obama who is the first African American President of the USA,

A president who traced his roots back to Kenya,

And had she won the elections,

Then Martha Karua would have also been president!

And so now you know. I hear G Money can do these freestyle! Like no research time whatsoever. Will try and get a video of that.

Now since it’s a habit of mine to leave you with a video you should check out and seeing as how ‘Tenuous Links’ are strange, then how about an even stranger song selection by Lonely Island?

Yup! Still can’t figure out how they get such massive stars to be in their videos and songs. Check out this Adam Levine and Kendrick Lamar featured one called ‘YOLO’ (You Oughta Look Out).

My Experience Thus Far (Part One)

It’s funny how fast a year can go by. First off, I think judging by how long it took me to write a third post (seven months to be exact) it’s clear that I suck at this blogging thing.

On the upside though, it DOES mean that there is a LOT to blog about. For starters, I last posted in March which was before I got an opportunity to host 124. That’s Homeboyz Radio’s afternoon show and I sat in for the brief period that my big sister in the industry Mwalimu Rachel was on maternity leave.

Fell in love with it and it taught me a lot about being on air which was an awesome experience. Yeah nothing builds you more than being taken away from your comfort zone and plunged into shoes ten times your size (which is what it felt like) but it feels great to look back and say that I did it and even better when the memories are countless.

Yeah I can’t believe I hosted ‘Class In The Sun’!!!! Although I still have my reservations about how I did as a live host, it was by far one of my most memorable radio moments and as a wise man, whose name I shall not say, (mostly because I don’t even know him…lol) said, ‘never a failure, always a lesson’.

Glad that I can say I did it J

And among the list of things I can also say I did was I finally got that tattoo!! Lost my old man to a heart attack last year (hard to believe time has gone by that fast) and I decided to engrave his memory on my left arm, in a tattoo of a cross covered in flowers with his initials on a ribbon. Check it out;

Not bad ey? Should have seen it before it healed *eeek*

Yup! That was one more ‘glad I did this’ moment and then, after Rachel got back on 124 and I went back to being on my grind, I’ve so far thoroughly enjoyed the Tenuous Links on Talia’s ‘The Juice’.

Lol. I think the first time the feature was explained to me, my face was like a clean sheet of paper….blank! Came to love it though and who would have guessed that linking two people who’ve got absolutely nothing in common wouldn’t be so bad.

Yeah that’s what the Tenuous Link is about. It’s about getting two people who have nothing in common, like say, ‘The Queen and Bob Marley’, then going to tenuous lengths to show you how they are linked. Sample one of those here.

It’s been an incredible ride so far and since even I can’t talk for THAT long, I leave you with a link to a song by Zambian crew ‘Zone Fam’ called ‘Lobola’.

No I have no idea what that means but I do make a tinnie tiny cameo in it, taken from when I interviewed them at Homeboyz Radio.

Not to worry, that’s not the reason I picked it. I chose it because; replaying how great my experience has been thus far, this would honestly make for a fitting theme song.

Love,

Crazy Awesome Rae

P.S, Look forward to a part two soon :)