Tanzania bongo flava superstar Alikiba seems to have changed his career from being bongo musician to being a footballer.
On Wednesday, top-flight Tanzanian club Coastal Union announced, via its social media pages, that they have acquired the artiste’s services as a professional footballer.
“Welcome to Coastal Union,” the message from the Tanga based club read in part, complete with the musician’s photo in the team’s official jersey.
However, the 31-year-old singer, songwriter, actor, producer and director is yet to officially announce or comment on this transfer almost 16-hours later, lending credence to social media reports that this development could in fact be a marketing stunt.
Alikiba, is not new to football as he plays as Striker in the for local amateur sides and is also known to be an ardent fan of record Tanzanian league champions Yanga.
He is a top artiste in East and Central Africa, is known to have earned millions of shillings in performances, sales of music and endorsements in the past decade.
His most popular hits include tracks such as Mwana, Aje, Usiniseme, Dushelele, Macmuga among many other compositions.
Earlier in the week, He had been reported to feature as a player in the new season of Tanzanian Premier League which is set to kick off next month.
According to the club chairman Steven Mguto said, “To be honest we are left with very few days to complete our transfers and I guess we will know that in the next two days or so. We are finalizing the contracts of other players but we can’t say the same for him (Alikiba) because he is yet to sign anything. What if he changes his mind? But to some extent we are interested in signing him, if all goes well.
The chairman went on to add that Alikiba is an athlete but he is not at his best because he hasn’t been training as often as he should. Regardless, he says they wouldn’t mind having him on board.
This has now been speculated that kiba could once again be contemplating in taking a music break to concentrate on football.
He at one time once took a three-year music break after which he cameback with a bang in 2015, where he has been releasing a number of hits that have ruled the music industry for a couple of years now.
It is however understood that Coastal Union is more interested in Alikiba’s image to help market the club rather than his services on the pitch.
Consequently, to make him feel part of them, knowing how enthusiastic he is on matters football, the club appears to have settled on signing him as a ‘player’.
In the recent, past Alikiba has been involved directly or indirectly in several friendly matches both home and away including organizing football tournaments.
Coastal Union is a Tanzanian football club based in Tanga. They play in the top level of Tanzanian professional football, the Tanzanian Premier League.Their home games are played at Mkwakwani Stadium. And are officially sponsored by Pembe Flour Mills Ltd.
The Chekecha hitmaker, recently got married to his longtime girlfriend from Kenya.
Alikiba came to fame after he released his album Cinderella which broke record as the best selling album in East African countries including Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. He is best known for his hit songs Mwana, “Aje” , “Chekecha Cheketua” “Cinderella”, “Nakshi Mrembo”, “Usiniseme,” “Dushelele”, “Single Boy with Lady Jaydee”, “Mapenzi”, “Yana Run Dunia”, and “Macmuga”, and for his collaboration with R. Kelly and other African musicians on the One8 project.