Jason Dunford, 33, was born and raised in Kenya. At 22 he competed in the 2008 Olympics, posting a new Olympic record and making it to the finals. He went on to compete in the Commonwealth Games, World Championships and the 2012 Olympics. Now retired from his swimming career, Dunford is making his way into the music industry. He chats to 540 about his time as a swimmer, the importance of environmental sustainability and his musical career with Romantico.
Q. Please tell me about your childhood growing up in Kenya with your two brothers?
A. I have very fond memories growing up in Kenya with my two brothers. We were all very into our sport and the outdoors, my dad and mum are both athletes so they used to take us swimming and to the coast to do water sports. We played cricket, hockey, rugby and squash in different school teams and I just loved playing sport. I also loved my music but my brothers weren’t so into music so I gravitated towards the sports arena and music took a backseat in my life. Of course, academics were important to all of us and we tried to get the best grades in class so we could get into the best schools as possible beyond Kenya. So, we lived by a work-hard, play-hard ethic that came from my parents. They taught us when it’s time to work, it’s time to work and when it’s time to play, you focus and enjoy that too and whatever activity you’re doing, you’re trying to become the best you can.
Q. What or who inspired you to swim?
A. My parents did because they were both swimmers in their earlier lives so they were my first inspirations. Then over the years I had incredible coaches like Andrew Nderu, who took my swimming to the next level. He is one of the top youth coaches in Kenya as well as Peter O’Sullivan when I went to boarding school in England on a sports and academic scholarship. He is the one who planted the seed in my mind that I could really make it to the Olympics and told me that swimming for a college in the United States was a very good way to do that. Beyond that, at Stanford, I trained under Skip Kenney and Ted Knapp – two legendary coaches in the sport – before finishing my career with Andrea Di Nino, one of the top sprint coaches in the world and based in Europe. There was of course Tony Batis who is a top club coach in Palo Alto, whom I also swam under for part of my career.
Q. How often would you train?
A. I would have about 11 training sessions a week, totalling up to 20 hours. Half of that would be spent in the pool and half would be spent doing landbased training in the gym doing weights and circuit training. It was a brutal programme combined with studying for my A-levels, then studying for my degree at Stanford University and then my Masters – I was training through all of that so the programme was not easy and there were many times when I would think I couldn’t keep going, but something within me kept pushing me on and as my swimming kept getting better, I was inspired to keep going.
Q. Any advice for swimmers aspiring to practice the sport for their career?
A. My advice to swimmers aspiring to become professionals is that you really want to have to commit. There’s no easy path – you have to understand there will be tough days and easy days, but on the tough days it’s really important to get your head down and try to push through. I would say it’s important to keep working hard academically because a swimming career is a short career and ends relatively early in your life and there needs to be something you can pursue beyond swimming. Of course, coaching could be one avenue, but it’s important to give yourself options if you want to move away from the pool as well. In terms of practicing the sport, just keep going with your kicking – there’s nothing more important that having a strong kick so the more you work on this, the stronger swimmer you’ll be.
Q. What advice did your coach give you running up to the 2008 Olympics?
A. In the run up to 2008, my coach tried to take the pressure off and try to put it in the context of my life and of the wider life I would lead. It was great I was going to the Olympics but it was very helpful to have someone take the pressure off so I could see it as just another competition in the course of my life. The mistake I made in 2012 for my second Olympics was that I put way too much pressure on myself and I don’t think I managed my psychology as well. I do remember in 2008, my coach Skip Kenney was helping my brother and I out in the build up to the games and he was very keen to keep us in a balanced state of mind.
Q. Please tell me about your academic life and career later in life. Why did you choose to study biology and environmental science and pursue a career in environmental sustainability? What do you think is in store for Kenya in terms of sustainability?
A. I chose a degree in human biology initially because I wanted to go into the medical field. During the course of my studies, I gravitated more towards human interaction and our effect on it. This allowed me to take more of an interest in environmental sustainability so I pursued a Masters in environmental science immediately afterwards as I continued to train. After I retired from swimming, I worked in recycling and solar power generation, those were both jobs I took in America and I got to see a number of ways in which our consumer lifestyle really affects the planet. So, it became something very important to me and something I wanted to put out into the world to help us move towards more global sustainability, but of course it is complex. For sustainability in Kenya, the country is amazing in terms of how much renewable energy we produce. I think if we can stay away from bad directions such as building a coal plant in Lamu as this doesn’t seem like the most productive way of creating energy. I do think there’s a positive future in Kenya for sustainable oils and there’s a great ethos in terms of tree planting and reforestation. I hope we can maintain this and think more carefully about how we plan the development of our cities to maintain green space because if we can plan better, there’s no need to destroy these areas – it really is all about planning and balancing the need to create jobs and develop with the need to preserve our environment.
Q. In 2018 you started your music career. What inspired you to do this and is it something you always saw yourself doing?
A. In 2018 I was invited to do a song with a rapper and music producer called Romantico. He came to Kenya as a missionary from Mexico and got into music as he realised Reggaeton and Genya has a similar beat. He was the first person to create Spanish Swahili music on a new beat. We met in the gym when I was covering a story for the BBC as a journalist and he was there working out and we connected. I had heard about him on the radio and thought I could write a great article on him but he invited me to do a song with him. It’s not something I saw myself doing but how often does someone ask you to do this, so I gave it a go. We recorded our first song ‘Mbaya’ and it started from there. I was doing this as a side job but the project got so big – most recently we collaborated with Antonia Carmona of Ketama, a legendary Grammy winner who flew up from Spain. We’re doing a full album called ‘One’ with Jabali Afrika, the most toured Kenyan band of all time. We’re also working with Roberto from Zambia, the singer behind Amarula, he’s the top artist in Zambia. We’re also in talks with the team of Selena Gomez. Everything has moved really quickly and it became too much to do both, so I am currently taking a break from journalism for a while to see where my musical career can take me.
Q. Where do you find inspiration for your music and in particular the lyrics?
A. My inspiration comes from my Olympic experience; I speak my truth in my music and try to source that depending on theme that we’re looking at for a particular song when I’m working with Romantico. I have my first single ‘Dance with Me’ that is out now on Spotify as part of our debut album. We were exploring the range of human emotion in our song writing as well as different societal issues that are important to us, so it really depends on the song. I get inspired by just sitting down and just starting to write – I had an advisor once tell me that the way to write is just to sit down and focus, so that’s what I try and do.
Q. Can you explain your stage name ‘Samaki Mkuu’?
A. My stage name came from my first song with Romantico. My first ever verse I wrote ‘Naogelea nitakuwa samaki mkuu’ means ‘I am swimming so I can become the great fish’. ‘Mkuu’ has connotations with ‘big’ and ‘great’, but can mean ‘prime’ also. From there, I decided to run ‘Samaki Mkuu’ as a stage name as it felt authentic and people responded well to it.
Q. What is your day-today life like now in the rap industry?
A. My music goes beyond the rap industry because we collaborate with musicians beyond this genre, but my day-to-day life can be anything from recording to shooting music videos all over Nairobi and beyond. There’s also a lot of admin that I have to deal with running the label including the marketing side of things and the planning of shows. We will be touring in February this year so there’s a lot of planning for this. Everyday can be different which is a little stressful but I really relish in the freedom I have over my schedule so I can work on the biggest priorities.
Q. What is it like working with Romantico?
A. He is a genius, there’s nothing more that can be said. He has a degree in theology and philosophy, so comes from a wonderful spiritual place. He is thoughtful with everything he writes and thinks about and I’ve learnt a tonne from being able to interact with him. He keeps me very even-keeled, we work well with each other and our different energy, looks and styles – that yin and yang – works well for us. I relish the opportunity to be in the studio with him and the creative process is made a lot easier by working with him. We butt heads but I think in every working relationship that can’t be avoided. The fact we are able to move on quickly and keep things moving forward says to me that he’s reliable and we can push things further and further together.
Q. What are your plans for the next year?
A. The next year is going to be huge; we have four big music releases that will be coming out early in the year – four big videos, three of which have already been shot. We release ‘Tiki Tiki’ on 20th January, a big dance song, and we will be releasing ‘Usiende Mbali’, our collaboration with Antonia Carmona of Ketama, and ‘Sanaipei Tande’ and ‘Justo Asikoye’ in March. April will see the release of ‘Tingisha Nywele’ featuring Jabali Afrika. There’s more to come later on in the year including releases with Dufla, Lemarti, Nazizi, Joy Birech and Dinah Ndombi. We’ve also written a song for the Kenyan Olympic team called ‘Pamoja’ and it’s on our album ‘One’.
Follow: @jasondunford on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter or as duo @romanticosamakimkuu on facebook, instagram and @romanticosm on Twitter.
