Who is Joseph Mbilinyi?

Dar es Salaam. Mbeya Urban MP Joseph Mbilinyi ‘Sugu’ - “stubborn” or “hard” in English - who was yesterday handed a five-month prison sentence for defaming President John Magufuli is living up to his reputation.

In the world of rap, especially in the United States where the music genre is thought to have first anchored its roots, you cannot claim to be a rapper worth your salt if you have never seen the inside of a prison.

The Chadema MP’s latest tangle with the law only goes to prove his street credibility and furthers the narrative in his songs about oppression by the ‘system,’ including police brutality and corruption. Unafraid of trouble, Sugu has not always been known to mince his words.

Born on May 1, 1972, the man formerly known as Mr II, or 2-Proud, is the first born among four children.

According to his Curriculum Vitae, Mr Mbilinyi attended Ligula (Mtwara), Sokoine (Dar es Salaam) and Sisimba (Mbeya) primary schools between 1981 and 1987. He joined Mbeya Secondary School in 1988 and stayed up to 1990 before moving to SabaSaba Secondary School, which he left in 1991.

Sugu’s music career is said to have started taking off in secondary school. After school he invested his energies in Swahili rap - later known as Bongo Flava - and the celebrity lifestyle for a period spanning over a decade. He is among the pioneers of rap music in the country. Between the late 90s and 2010, the legislator is said to have worked as a security officer at British Petroleum (BP). Riding on his stage persona and massive appeal among the youth, whose lives he used to rap about, Mbilinyi launched his political journey on June 27, 2010 at the age of 38 when he was officially handed the Chadema membership card by the party’s secretary general John Mnyika, a few days after he had arrived from the US.

Two days later, he joined the race for Mbeya Urban seat, which he won against his main rival Benson Mpesya of CCM after garnering 46,411 votes against his opponent’s 24,322. This victory would put him on the same stage as the ‘oppressors’ he used to sing about.

In the 2015 parliamentary elections his popularity with constituents soared and saw him garner 108,566 votes out of a possible 166,256, the largest number of votes recorded by any MP that year.

In Parliament the vocal member of the main opposition party Chadema was known to disown any of his speeches that were edited to water down his raw message.

He joins a bulging list of legislators who have been locked up by law enforcers in the past three years. He is the second MP, after Kilombero legislator Peter Lijualikali (Chadema) to be sentenced to serve a jail term within that period.

Others that have tasted prison cells are Godbless Lema (Arusha Urban), Tundu Lissu (Singida East), Halima Mdee (Kawe), Peter Msigwa (Iringa Urban), Zitto Kabwe and Chadema chairman Freeman Mbowe.