Malaika Nnyanzi on lessons from her mother

Kampala, Uganda | AGNES NANTABA | Malaika Nnyanzi is a fast rising radio and TV personality in Uganda with a growing audience. She co-hosts the morning show ‘D mighty breakfast’ with Brian Mulondo on KFM. She is also an MC for events and an actress who has featured in several films including the popular ‘Beneath the lies’. Emceeing is another job she loves doing and her first gig was for the NEYO concert.

One does not have to look too deep to find the source of her bubbling energy and passion, Nnyanzi will tell you matter-of-factly that she is motivated by the love of good things. And since good things cost money, she has no choice but to hustle.

Her typical day starts as early as 3:45am to prepare for the breakfast show after which she proceeds to edit for Vodafone and this feeds into the evening gigs as MC closing the day at about midnight. But even with such a long day, Nnyanzi is happy to work.

“I made a decision to sleep when I have earned it and until then, I work while I still can,” says Nnyanzi.

“My mother taught me to be a hardworking person”.

Nnyanzi is the only girl and last born of the two children of Mr. and Mrs Nnyanzi. She was born in Nairobi Kenya at a time when her father, a former army man was exiled. The family later relocated to Uganda; settling in the heart of the city before resettling in Kampala’s suburb of Bugolobi.

There, she went to Safari Kindergarten, Kampala Parents School, Gayaza High School and completed high school at Makerere College. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in International Business at United States International University in Nairobi. In Nairobi, she says, she worked as a models manager doing productions for Swahili Fashion Week and Zambia Fashion Week among others across the region. She joined the media when she returned from Kenya after the six year sojourn.

“When I returned to Uganda, my initial plan was not to stay for too long but return to Kenya and start something new,” said Nnyanzi.

“I was still thinking on my next move and discovering myself”.

As a person who never sits back but finds something to do, Nnyanzi’s next move was to try out several other jobs; including marketing and managing models back in Kenya. Even when she had not done a media job before, Nnyanzi chose it over a corporate job just as something she had always loved to do. She started with Urban TV hosting `Urban Today’ and later `Fashionista’.

“The job rediscovered me and opened up my world,” she says.

But, as an admirer of top radio personalities, Nnyanzi equally loved radio which, she says, gives room for a private life unlike TV. It was not long before she started receiving invites for radio jobs and two years down the road, she called it quits with urban Television to take up her current position on KFM radio.