There was vitriol' Kenyan pop singer on being outed

Coming out as gay was not something Willis Austin Chimano, a member of the Kenyan Afropop band Sauti Sol, had ever considered.

- Sarah Johnson

Coming out as gay was not something Willis Austin Chimano, a member of the Kenyan Afropop band Sauti Sol, had ever considered. From about 2005, when the group - widely considered to be Africa's biggest boyband - was formed, to 2018, Chimano says he "wore a mask" at work and was careful about how he acted, spoke and dressed. At the same time, he embraced his queer identity in his private life.

"I had to do everything in my power to keep my sexuality hidden," he says. His bandmates knew, and supported him, but Chimano thought he would not be accepted by the public. "I was scared that it could ruin our chances at becoming bigger. I just wanted to keep a clean representation of me," he says. "My queerness would have been a scandal."

Then, in 2018, a photo of him with his partner was posted online and republished by mainstream media outlets in Kenya. He was the first pop star in the deeply religious country to be outed as gay - and social media went wild.

"There was vitriol, oh my God, so much," Chimano recalls. "People were saying: you're a sinner, it goes against the laws of nature, it's against African culture. There's a larger society belief that what [queer people] are doing is wrong. People don't understand."