Just A Band. Photo via the artists' Facebook.
Kenya’s Just A Band have announced that they’ll be taking a long break from working on music together to focus on their individual projects. The electronic pop trio of Blinky Bill, Daniel Muli and Mbithi Masya were working on their fourth album together, from which they’d previously shared the single “Winning In Life” featuring Owuor Arunga.
A statement on Just A Band’s official site reads:
The band has been active since 2008, and we held it in our heads as a burning idea for five years before that. We've come to the point where a refresh is in order. And fortunately, the band has been super successful in one of its main goals since its inception: to open up opportunities for each of us in the collective to explore and express ourselves in all the manners and media and forms that we find compelling. For this, we can't thank you all enough.We feel that Just A Band will be stronger as a unit for us taking the time to explore these paths and become stronger as individuals. We shall return as Voltron! (As opposed to the Ninja Turtles, haha.)
The band has announced their two final shows for the foreseeable future in Nairobi: April 8 at the Goethe Institut Auditorium and April 10 at Blankets and Wine.
Just A Band aren’t leaving us empty-handed though, they depart with the new synth-heavy instrumental jam “African Kids These Days,” which was recorded for their fourth album.
In terms of their own projects, Blinky Bill is readying a debut solo album tentatively titled Everyone's Just Winging It & Other Fly Tales, he's also working on a monthly RBMA Radio show. He'll also be Daniel, under his Nairobidhobi alias, will be working on a graphic novel and experimenting with comic collective Comi(K)ment Issues. And Mbithi is already finishing up his first feature-length film KatiKati, he’ll keep releasing music as RickySuede.
Stream Just A Band’s final song (for now) “African Kids These Days” and revisit their last video for "Winning In Life" below. Keep up with the group's individual projects here.