Back before the World Bank Group launched AgriConnect, an initiative to transform farming for better jobs and food security, there was a Kenyan poet named Ken Kibet, better known as Mufasa. Now 37 years old and living in Nairobi, Mufasa uses the art of spoken word, or performance poetry, to highlight the dreams of young people in Africa and the obstacles they face. Mufasa, who grew up partly amid his grandmother’s rural fruit orchards and maize fields in the village of Itigo, performed a poem via video for the AgriConnect launch in 2025. In this conversation, Mufasa talks about how he ended up studying business, what farming means to him, and why poetry matters.
How did you start writing poetry?
When I was younger, I had some experiences that made me sort of keep to myself, stay secluded. I started writing my thoughts down in the backs of my schoolbooks. I didn’t know back then that it was poetry. I was just writing.
Can you tell me more?
My family was struggling to make ends meet and my older brothers went to government schools, but my mom and dad put me in a private school. Maybe they had enough money for that, but as much as they tried, I didn’t really fit in. I always felt like I didn’t belong, and so I started writing things in my notebooks. Later on, I discovered that what I was doing was poetry and that I could create poems. That was my start.
Did you then go on to study poetry, or maybe literature in university?
Actually, I wanted to study communications, but my mom did not allow that. My mom was like, ‘no, no, what is that?’ Like that's for people who, I don't know, maybe don’t need to earn money. She was thinking I should be a lawyer, an engineer, something strong like that. One day, I remember, we were going through the newspaper and saw a course advertised called Bachelor in Business, Information and Technology. My mom said that sounded good. So I chose it for my mom and I went to Nairobi to study. It was difficult because I often didn’t have the school fees, and I would miss exams. I would watch friend after friend graduate, and I was stuck. But one important thing happened. In Nairobi, open mic events [where people go and perform publicly] were common in the city. And just like that, performing poetry became my therapeutic activity. I didn't know there would come a day when it would put food on my table.
We hear a lot these days about skills, and skills building, and the need to prepare for jobs of the future. Where does poetry fit into this?
Across the world today, poetry and especially the art of performance poetry has created an opportunity for the voices of young people to be heard and to matter. Personally, poetry has put me in spaces I would not have imagined I could access because of my age, because of my education level, and because of borders. Being in these spaces has made me more informed and more active as a global citizen.
It can and does do the same for other young people. You know, there are so many ways people speak. If you’re into tech, there’s tech language. If you work for an NGO, there’s NGO language. What poetry does, is it humanizes. It breaks things down, makes them easy to understand, relatable. A poem tries to make people see things from a human angle. Because before anything else, we're human beings who need food, shelter, dignity, and jobs. That matters for development.
The poem you performed for the World Bank Group event talked about your experiences at the farm with your grandmother. How important was – or is – farming to you?
We were always at my grandmother’s farm when school was closed. We would work there with her. That's a big part of my childhood. Like when I now see maize, I see my grandmother, I remember my childhood. When we needed something, we would sell maize. That's how my grandmother bought everything. I remember if you wanted to eat chapati or crepes, you would carry some maize to the market and then you would sell it. You get money, and you buy the wheat flower and come home.
One of the things that really makes me mad is just seeing a lot of uncultivated land. Here in Kenya, and across Africa, there is a lot of bare, uncultivated land . Yet there are people who don't have food. It doesn't make sense. You see how there's no real investment in agriculture anymore. Young people don’t study agribusiness anymore and there’s not enough policy attention on it. It frustrates me.
Do you still go to the farm?
No, when my grandmother died the farm was sold. That was very sad. But just the other day my sister was asking me about buying some land, so maybe one day I will have a farm again. I would like that.
Join the Conversation