Martin Kanja, AKA Lord Spikeheart, covers everything from colonialism to his grandmother in music that mixes African culture with metal. He hopes to help more artists like him break through
As a teenager, Martin Kanja spent countless late nights listening to heavy metal on a local radio show. The furious riffs, shrieks, growls and distorted sounds drowned out his angst. “What drew me to the music was how it was so ‘physical’ – very present, very now – there was no space for negative thoughts or feelings,” says Kanja, who soon decided he too wanted to be a metal artist.
In 2010, when he was 19, he left his home town in Kenya’s midwestern city Nakuru for the capital, Nairobi, figuring it was his best bet for a foothold in the underground scene.
