When Janice Wangari arrived on the set of Mejja’s “Siaka” video, she did not yet know she was walking into the moment that would change her life.
Mejja had reached out after Wangari’s TikToks helped make “Siaka” one of Kenya’s most visible dance challenges of the year. Alongside Zenah Mwenda, Tracy Muange, Shawell and Lolo Mwangi, Wangari became one of the faces of a playful, provocative, chest-led trend built around the song’s infectious opening beat.
“It was just a fun thing to do,” Wangari tells OkayAfrica. “So many people [were] doing it and it’s like we started a whole movement.”
Before Mejja released “Siaka” as a single or shot the video, the women had already helped turn an album track into a viral hit. The attention brought followers, bookings and paid appearances. For four of them, it also became something like a group identity. But in socially conservative Kenya, the dance that made them recognizable also brought judgment, sexual comments and, at times, safety concerns. Their story is about what happens when women help make a song move, then try to turn that attention into power of their own.
“The TikToks became bigger than the song,” Mejja tells OkayAfrica. “I’d open my phone and find clips from everywhere…even Colombia…of women doing that dance.”
When the official video dropped in April, the women were impossible to miss in its first 15 seconds.
How “Siaka” Started Moving
“I was like, ‘Wow, this is the song. This is it,’” Mwenda — @zenahkarimi_ on TikTok — remembers when she first heard “Siaka.” “I was really, really impressed, and I knew I wanted to do a video.”
At the time, Mejja had just released his Mtoto Wa Khadija album in March and was focused on other singles. But Mwenda, a college student and content creator, heard something in “Siaka,” which features Ugandan rapper Fik Fameica. Her video for the already viral Burukanga challenge had crossed one million views, teaching her that people responded to her style.
She filmed the “Siaka” dance, posted it, then tagged Wangari (@_janicewangari) and Shawell (@shawell5). Muange, already a well-known creator [@its._tracy], came in separately after seeing the trend and thinking, “Why not?”
The clips stood out because they felt uncalculated. The women looked straight into the camera, popped their chests, and moved with a confidence that made the challenge feel like both an inside joke and a dare. It was suggestive, but also funny.
The #SiakaChallenge was built around breasts, but for the women, it was not just about being sexualized. It also became a performance of body confidence. For Wangari, who grew up embarrassed by the attention her chest brought, the challenge felt freeing.
“Finally, I see a trend I can actually participate in, and I have the facilities for it,” she says. “And I said, ‘you know what, let me do it.’ And I did it, and that was my first ever viral video.”
Mejja also saw why “Siaka” connected with women used to hiding their bodies. Early in the challenge’s viral run, he recalls a woman approaching him after a show and telling him she had grown up feeling she needed to hide her breasts.
“If you have boobs, and you were hiding them, it’s okay… own them,” he says.
The response was immediate. Four months after its release, the official “Siaka” video has drawn close to 12 million views on YouTube.
Wangari says one of her own “Siaka” TikToks reached about 5 million views, while a group clip they shot on set climbed to roughly 11 or 12 million. Mwenda says her TikTok following grew from about 5,000 to 60,000 after “Siaka.” Muange, who already had a strong following, says she went from about 40,000 TikTok followers to 81,000.
What Visibility Became
As the challenge spread, the women began getting recognized in public. Then came bookings for club appearances and ad campaigns, along with PR package offers.
For Mwenda, the shift was immediate. On campus, one of her lecturers joked about her new fame. In malls, strangers stopped her to ask if she was the “Siaka Siaka girl.”
“I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m Siaka Siaka,’” she says, laughing.
Mejja, who brought the women together for the official video, also helped them understand what that visibility was worth. He became a kind of mentor, encouraging them not to undervalue themselves and showing them that their presence could command a fee.
Wangari says people often assume creators are posting for fun. But if she is being pulled away from other work for an event, she expects to be paid.
“Now we know we’re playing a really big role in making these songs go viral,” she says. “So at the end of the day, we need credit for it.”
The Bargain of Being Seen
But the same visibility that created new income also made their bodies subject to public judgment.
The comments were not only about the dance. They became a referendum on what kind of women they were. Some of the names they were called, in English and Kiswahili, are too vulgar to print. Others questioned their parents and what “good girls” should do with their bodies. In their DMs, the attention often turned sexual.
“It’s just a dance like any other dance to me,” Wangari explains. “But the fact that people are fetishizing this, people are making it seem so weird… to me, it was just a fun dance.”
Mwenda says her mother is proud of her, but still reminds her that visibility comes with both love and hate. Sometimes, her mother even defends her in the comments. But Mwenda has also learned to use some of the hate. “Those hate comments, that’s how I find content,” she says. “If somebody talks negatively and I reply online, people are like, ‘Oh my God, I love this girl, love the confidence,’ and then I get engagement.”
For Muange, the cost became more sinister when the attention moved offline. After “Siaka,” men began following her and showing up where she lived.
“I actually vacated from where I was staying because men were following me,” she says. Men she did not know would knock at her door, claiming they wanted to be friends. Eventually, she moved for her safety and became more careful about sharing her location.
Online, Muange protects herself by rarely opening her comments. “If I dwell in the comments… I’m the one who’ll get hurt because I’ll be depressed,” she explains. “I won’t even be proud of my body.”
Still, she understands the contradiction because the same comments that hurt can also help a video travel. “I feel like the hate comments are the ones helping me,” she says. “At the same time, they are hating, but on my end, it’s beneficial.”
Stronger Together
The four women first met in person on the “Siaka” video shoot, but the attention quickly gave them a reason to stay close. Mejja encouraged them to move as a unit, advice that soon made business sense. At one club appearance, Mwenda says she had initially been booked alone. When the other women joined her and performed as a group, the club increased the payment.
“I felt like we are stronger and we are better when we’re together,” she says.
Wangari says they still work as individuals, but audiences and promoters increasingly see them as one. “Any time we’re called to an event, people want you to pull up as a group,” she says. “We hang out all the time together, and it’s fun.”
Muange wants them to become an official group and make more content together. They have joked about names, including Milky Way and Boob Avengers, names borrowed from how people already talk about them online. But none of them want “the Siaka girls” to be a throwaway label. The challenge now is not just going viral, but staying.
