The extremely high cost of rap CDs, magazines, merchandise, and music equipment led the genre to be initially exclusive to middle- and upper-class youths.
Jimmy Gathu, one of the earliest known rappers on the Kenyan scene, would soon follow with his 1991 hit "Look, Think, Stay Alive",[7] a song dealing with road safety.
The show Mizizi, which aired on the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, gave young rappers a platform to express themselves, giving rise to Kenyan hip hop.
The first major commercial hip hop hit emerged in 1996 with "Uhiki" by Hardstone (Harrison Ngunjiri), which sampled a Kikuyu folk song and Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing",[citation needed] and was produced by Tedd Josiah of Audio Vault Studios (now Blue Zebra).
They went on to release their popular and politically charged hit "Unbwogable" in 2002; the word took on the meaning of "unshakable", "unstoppable", or "unbeatable" and was subsequently used by major politicians and in reference to 2008 US presidential candidate Barack Obama.