Toxic Lyrikali
A rapper from Kayole, Nairobi, Toxic Lyrikali turned the ghetto story into an anthem of pride: "Chinje" became the most viewed Kenyan rap video in history.
Toxic Lyrikali is a Kenyan rapper from Kayole, in eastern Nairobi. Before the music, he collected scrap metal at the local dump and worked on the construction sites, years of hard work that feed raw and precise texts on the lives of the popular neighborhoods, in Sheng and Swahili, with a strong Jamaican dancehall influence.
He started freestyles in high school in 2019 and started professionally in 2023: "Thugnificent" revealed it, then "Chinje" in November 2024, exploded and became his first million views, before exceeding 20 million in 2026 — a record for Kenyan rap. "Backbencher", which returns school failure in pride, confirms the phenomenon.
In 2025 Spotify named him the most discovered artist in Kenya and pushed him into the Top 10 of local artists. He then followed the titles — "Hate", "Mbebe", "Mfisadi", "Stone" — and the collaborations, and returned to film the clip of "Confirmation" at Kayole's dump where it all started, symbol of his journey.