Born David Mbiro, DJ Jey's life has been full of challenges and triumphs. This founder and President of Badilika DJs Ministries has overcome great odds despite the successes his career has enjoyed. Ironically, Badilika is a Swahili word meaning change and that’s exactly what this young man is all about. His life story begins in Mathare slums where he was brought up by a single mother. As if it could not get any worse, his mother was retrenched from her job. Since she could not afford to take care of Jey and his brother, she started selling illicit brew better known as changaa. With insecurity at home and the hostile environment he opted to live with his grandmother who could barely support him, his brother and seven cousins. Her only income was selling food and porridge.

He had to make an important decision, but that would haunt him for the better part of his youth. He ventured out to the streets to literary beg for food and money. He was able to take some home and after a while the family became dependent on him. "I was taller than most street boys and people refused to give me money saying that I was able to work!" However, his age would not allow him to work and he started stealing money. Snatching any valuable thing he could get from the hands of unsuspecting citizens and tourists.

Later his friend introduced him to organized crime (He was later shot dead by the police). He also started sniffing glue, smoking weed and drinking. On one of their missions they were caught by the police and were locked up in prison. Jey recalls that at that point he preferred to go to prison where he would receive three meals a day instead of the mean streets ruled by the jungle rule Survival for the fittest. He says it was there that he changed his ways and asked God to come into his life. After his release, he was taken in by the Deliverance Church Eastleigh children's home (by this time he was around 17 years old) who fed him, took him to school and more importantly imparted the Word of God in him. Unfortunately it was not long that the home was closed down and they all went back to the slums and some went back to their old habits. Jey held on to the Word of God and kept him grounded.

While in the slums, he started a ministry project called Ghetto Raisers where they would evangelize to the community through dance, drama and clean-up activities. This landed him a scholarship to Daystar University, where he took a short course in Youth Ministry. Together with a few friends, he formed a comedy group in his church called Sunday School dot com. They performed choreographed dances and Christian comedy, which saw them being invited to different churches and venues to minister. He had a passion for music and to be more precise DJing, but he did not know if it was something that he could use as a ministry tool. Jey had now become a man and could fend for himself.

He shared his music passion with his friend DJ Nevs and little did he know that his friend had that same vision, and with that they ventured to start what is now known as Badilika DJs. Armed with nothing more than a few CDs and a disc man, the outfit has grown and has managed to acquire professional DJ equipment and sound. Since 2001, they have organized various Christian events around Nairobi and all over the country (and Uganda too) including the monthly Swifthouse events as well as ICC's Friday Night Live, KORA Award winner George Okudi's concert, BBC Radio's DJ Fitz and UK based gospel reggae artist Witness' tour in Kenya among others. They have also been active in schools ministry as well as putting up several events in Children's homes and Nairobi slums. In 2006, they teamed up with K-Krew's DJ Moz and DJ Soxxy as well as DJ Jaymoh and started the Badilika School of Deejaying. Some of the beneficiaries of this venture include K-Krew's DJ Johnnie Celeb. In 2007, DJ Jey became the in-house DJ for the popular DSTv show called On The Mic, airing on One Gospel channel as well as KBC. His career went a notch higher in 2008 where he joined Zaidi ya Mziki on a nationwide USA tour across several states. Clearly, there is no stopping what God started in DJ Jey's life. As they say, the sky is the limit to what awaits him as he aspires to keep gospel music playing at a radio / speaker near you.

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Web: www.badilika.com

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