Jason Edward Dunford, OGW, OLY (born 28 November 1986), also known as Samaki Mkuu, is a Kenyan Olympic swimmer, media personality, rapper and entrepreneur.

[5] While at Marlborough College he met coach Peter O'Sullivan, himself a former Great Britain International Swimmer in the 400 m Individual medley.

In 2005, after finishing his A-Levels, Dunford moved to Stanford University in the United States where he earned a swimming scholarship.

[9] His success in 2006 earned him second place in the Kenyan Sportsman of the Year award, behind Alex Kipchirchir, one of Kenya's many world-class runners.

On earlier occasions, some Kenyan swimmers have participated in the Olympics, but only on the IOC swimming wild card.

[14] He participated the 2008 FINA Short Course World Championships in Manchester in April 2008 and reached the 100m butterfly final, finishing 8th.

[20] His first major competition in 2009 was the Summer Universiade in Belgrade, where he won the 100 meters butterfly race in a time of 51.29.

[8] In the presidential honors list for 2010, Jason Dunford was awarded an Order of the Grand Warrior [28] from President Mwai Kibaki for his services rendered to the nation.

[35] During the course of his MBA, he co-founded Safi Analytics [36] with his wife Lauren and founded his own talk-show J-Talk Live.

[37] After graduation with his MBA in June 2018, Dunford joined the BBC as a bilingual, broadcast journalist working on a new Africa TV business team led by Africa business editor Larry Madowo,[38] where he reported and produced for the shows Smart Money,[39] Biashara Bomba,[40] Money Daily[41] and Mitikasi Leo.

[45] The experience led to the formation of the duo Romantico & Samaki Mkuu, the creation of the new sound Gengetone, a merger of Genge and Reggaeton, that includes Swahili, Spanish and English lyrics.

[49] Samaki Mkuu then released his first single, a collaboration with his former colleague at the BBC, Peter Mwangangi and American folk singer, Sheeba Marie.

[50] Romantico & Samaki Mkuu released One, their first album together on December 18, 2019, with 11 gengetone tracks featuring artists Phoebe Alice-Ritchie, Dinah Ndombi, Peter Mwangangi, Sheeba Marie and Munju Reh.

[54] On April 1, 2020, Samaki Mkuu released his second album, Unified:Un Ultimo Ulimwengu, a collaboration with Jus of Jabali Afrika featuring guest artists Romantico, Yawezekana Strong, Achienge Guyo and Daktare Dan.

[61] In 2021, Dunford was part of a collaboration for the track Usiende Mbali [62] by Antonio Carmona of Ketama, Romantico & Samaki Mkuu, featuring Jabali Afrika and Sanaipei Tande.