A talent emerged with a vociferous, shrill and piercing cry deep in the heart of Kayole, Nairobi on June 12, 1990. It was an uncertain time. Agitations for multiparty democracy clouded the air amidst arbitrary detentions, torture, and killings. Still, a mother—freed from the listlessness of a third trimester—rocked a plump newborn. As the cries of Robert Ouko’s assassination tapered, it was only fitting that the mother in Kayole thought it wise to name her new hope—Brian Ouko Robert—perhaps as a silent resistance against the dictatorial regime. I do not know. I have not asked. But I know we use names to resist erasure.

Brian Ouko Robert—aka Mr. Omollo aka Khaligraph Jones—was welcomed by a troubled country of barely 20 million people. Exactly 28 years later, this baby released a debut album, Testimony 1990, and gave us a chance to look back not only at this child who has now become a man, but at a country whose population, just like its troubles, has doubled.