Willis Austin Chimano, a member of the top Kenyan band Sauti Sol, has come out as gay, telling a local media that he no longer wants to live a lie.
Willis Chimano is one of the four members of Sauti Sol which is one of Africa’s most popular male bands, and has won the MTV Africa Music Awards in 2016.
Chimano’s coming out as gay has been hailed as a victory for the LGBT community.
In Kenya, gay intercourse is criminal by up to 14 years in jail; in 2019, a challenge to the law was dismissed.
Prosecutors rarely use this rule, and attitudes toward LGBT individuals are more liberal than in neighbouring countries like Uganda and Tanzania.
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Despite the fact that there have been few reports of homophobic violence in Kenya, many LGBT people live in secret societies and are sometimes rejected by their relatives in this very religious country.
“It is the first time I am expressing myself in a song. You really get to know who Chimano is and that is a heavy crown to carry. It is just a representation of the underground ballroom culture within the queer community… which I am part of,” he is quoted as saying.
In 2019, a Kenyan High Court ruled against activists seeking to abolish a law prohibiting homosexual sex.
Campaigners wanted the colonial-era law repealed, claiming that it fostered homophobia.