Death of the Video Banda, an Integral Piece of Modern Culture.

A typical video banda setting across Africa.

Recently while walking through a neighbourhood where I grew up, in Mombasa, I encountered a place that brought back so many memories of my teenage years. I sometimes try to roll back the years with walks down memory lane, literally. There it stood, still as it was before, structurally, maybe just a bit rustier after years of Mombasa humidity. But the aura around it just seemed off, like a fallen empire, with only those who experienced it having true tales of its former glory. Its template is similar to many such places across Africa, an iron sheet structure, with mostly wooden benches inside, projectors or sizeable TV screens. Video cafés is what the sophisticated will call them, ‘football viewing centers’ a more general continental term, ‘bandani’ if you grew up at the Coast.

The video banda’s transition to a societal mainstay is intertwined with changing consumers’ entertainment tastes and preferences. In the 90s it was the undisputed home for action movies (the kind of setting that gave DJ Afro a career), when video cassette players were still finding their way to the homes of the average Kenyan. Many had their first interaction with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Cynthia Rothrock in video bandas. Sarafina too, a much loved film reawakening the patriotic and pan-African spirit across Africa, found a home in the bossom of the video banda. It was a low-budget substitute to the luxuries of the movie theatres in the big towns and the then yet to be widely afforded video cassette player for the common mwananchi, making it a perfect fit for many low and middle-income settlements at the Coast. All this lay the foundation for the video banda’s real moment of greatness at the turn of the millennium, the increasing popularity of the English Premier League on our shores. Just like it offered a cheap avenue to movie access, so did it for European football, which Coast locals would tell you is aired ‘kwa dish’, pay TV. The dishes then for the behemoth digital satellite TV service provider DSTV/Multichoice were as big as those you would associate with NASA, adding to their grandeur. The video banda business model was simple, the proprietor paid for the monthly subscription premium package offered by the Pay TV service provider. The costs and profit from the venture would be offset by paying customers at the banda every other weekend. For as little as 20 shillings (sometimes less) one could watch the biggest teams in England and the rest of Europe playing. It nurtured the fanaticism and cult-like following for Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea a bit later, the original members of the ‘Top 4’ as the league ranking of the top clubs is commonly known.

So if the video banda is a preserve of many settlements across Africa, why my appreciation of it from a Coastal platform? It’s simple, because it offered a much-needed new frontier for merging of cultures, especially with the Coast being a hub of different cultures. In the video banda there was no religion, no political alignment, just a gathering of people united by love for the beautiful game of football. It broke many social barriers and stereotypes, it was the only place a fledgling teenage boy could trade banter (read heavy Coastal insults, in jest of course) with someone as old as his father, grandfather even, with no repercussions. When such gatherings happen weekly then it becomes more than a pastime, it is a way of life, much like in the old days when people gathered in barazas. So many bonds were forged in the video banda, culminating in regular attendees joining hands in the face of each others’ periods of tragedy in life. Many medical bills and funeral expenses were met with the backdrop of relationships built in the video banda. There was no alcohol drunk in the video banda (at least in these Coastal parts), making it neutral for people of different faiths, a stark contrast to the preferred social venues of football watching these days…restaurants, bars, even mangwes (palm wine joints) have graduated to the levels of airing live football matches. Sunflower seeds were a favoured snack in the banda, sellers of the commodity ultimately grateful for the ready market the video banda provided. A multi-faceted ground for entrepreneurship.

In the 2000s, the unwritten script for characters in the video banda was almost always the same, be it at the ‘Maracana’ in Kisauni or the banda next to Shukrani Café in Malindi. There was always a Liverpool fan, often advanced in age, who would hide in the shadow of his club’s past greatness (until recently), and most times exaggerate the number of years he’s been a Liverpool fan. The constantly hopeful Arsenal fans, at times hoping against all hope, logic and reason. I would have described them as mad, if I wasn’t one myself. The club somehow seems to boast an ever-relevant fanbase in number, no matter the disappointments on the pitch. Cult. Then there were the Manchester United fans, probably the most entitled and arrogant of the lot, they lived through the greatest period in their club’s history and were keen to constantly remind everyone of this. For some reason they chose Arsenal fans as their favourite banter recipients even after Chelsea came into the glory fold. Part-time football fans, full-time bullies. One thing the Arsenal and Manchester United fans were united in was castigating Chelsea fans as the Johnny-come-lately of the football scene. No amount of José Mourinho titles earned them favour in the eyes of the two sets of fans, at the time, they could do nothing right. Most Chelsea fans were accused of an Israelites-like exodus from Arsenal. There was also the conveyor of fake news, this one belonged to any team. At a time when the mobile phone handset wasn’t in most people’s hands and when it was it wasn’t as smart a phone as it is today, the player transfer news were left to be peddled like political propaganda. Wide access to the Goal website later ended the fake news merchant’s career, after a good run where he would declare top signings for his football club when even the club manager himself had no inkling of such. All these characters made for quite a potent mix of pure comedy, there was never a dull moment. You went to the video banda to forget your troubles and forget them you did.

With time, competition made the product offering by Pay TV service providers affordable for more households, some residential flats also offer a Pay TV option as part of the rental costs, add to that the Kenyan ingenuity in ‘illegal’ connections and cost-sharing, internet streaming of live matches and you can tell the video banda is in its dying embers of relevance. Regardless, its place in Coastal people’s recent modern culture is cast in stone. It taught and bred healthy competitive spirit, resilience to withstanding mocking and light-hearted banter, more importantly it taught everyone, young and old, how to live with other people of different backgrounds. I can’t think of any other setting presently that would bring together such a diverse collection of people, and Coastal society is lesser because of that. But just like the video banda broke the mould with its entrance into our lives, so must it exit the scene and die a natural death. So, three cheers for the video banda, a place of its time, deserving of being celebrated not mourned.