Mama Kayai

Mary Kavere, popularly known as Mama Kayai, is a veteran actor in Kenya and one of the thespians acknowledged for pioneering the acting industry in Kenya.[1] She has been in the industry for about four decades. In 2018 she was honored with the Grand Warrior Award which is also the feted induction to the Riverwood Awards Hall of Fame.[2][3]

She came into the public limelight in the 1980s following the premier of a popular comical family show, Vitimbi, in 1985 in the state-owned Kenya Broadcasting Corporation then known as Voice of Kenya (VOK). She later featured in another popular drama Vioja Mahakamani.[4] In the recent days she has been acting in another TV show Jungu Kuu that's aired on K24.

Mama Kayai was acting as the wife of also another celebrated thespian, the late Benson Wanjau, popularly known as Mzee Ojwan'g [5] and the two were celebrated as the power couple of Kenyan comedy.[6] Mzee Ojwang, christened the father of family comedy died of pneumonia in 2015.[7]

The Vitimbi crew led by Mama Kayai and Mzee Ojwan'g were always accorded an opportunity to entertain the nation in all national holidays.[8]

Kenya's founding president, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta often invited the vitimbi crew to entertain him at his Gatundu home. The late president Daniel Moi was also particularly fond of Mama Kayai and Mzee Ojwan'g's theatrics and other than according them an opportunity to perform at national holidays, he also invited them to state house.

Former president Mwai Kibaki also regularly invited Mama Kayai and her team to State House.