Blinky Bill

No one else sounds like Bill Sellanga, the multi-talented artist, producer and DJ from Nairobi, Kenya known as Blinky Bill. His music is a mix of futuristic African beats meets, Funk, hip-hop, Pop, electronica and hint of jazz.

Blinky Bill was raised in Eastleigh, a suburb in the heart of Nairobi. Both his parents are musicians, his mum a guitarist and his dad a singer in the church choir though they humbly prefer to deem themselves as “hobbyists” instead. Blinky grew up listening to everything: gospel, lingala, jazz, R&B and eventually hip-hop. “I was just like a sponge soaking in all of these sounds, that’s fundamental to my music.” In his late teens, he decided to follow his mum's footsteps of being a guitarist and taught himself.

At university, Blinky majored in Sports Science, and after feeling frustrated about his degree, found refuge in his closest friends. “We used music to escape from our realities at the time which [were] kind of depressing.” Then, Just A Band was formed, an art collective and genre-agnostic group, who are widely regarded as the forefathers of Kenya’s alternative music scene. Blinky’s solo musical career boasts two critically-acclaimed projects — We Cut Keys While You Wait (2016) and Everyone’s Just Winging It And Other Fly Tales (2018) — alongside juggling side quests like producing for artists like Nneka and Goldlink.

Experience Blinky Bill at Sound In The City