Papa T was born as Rooney Stanley in around the year 1997/8 in Mumias, Kakamega County. He is now among the most promising young talents in the Ohangla music who will be a link for transition in the industry. Papa T has had a better share of hard life just like other people.
His mother, Jackline Atieno “Nyar Rongo” which formed the part of Papa T’s Wuonyarongo name. He added the Wuonyarongo part as his name to denote where his mother was born. When Papa T was born, his mother and father were staying and working at the Mumias Sugar Company but would later relocate to their home in Uyoma, Naya Village in Siaya county.
Family issues and land ownership problems saw them relocate to Seme Kombewa in Kisumu County with his mother in 2005. Here he continued his education at Okode Primary school where he sat his KCPE exams. He then joined Ndigwa High school in Uyoma for his secondary education.
Life of Papa T Wuonyarongo after School and Entrance to Music
After finishing his basic education, Papa T started helping his mother at their Kibanda shop. At this time, already he had realized his passion in music while in form three where he even recorded a song Lamo Mamana which he later changed to Pokokethore.
At the Kibanda shop, the mother was buying bananas from Busia in large scale and selling to retailers. However, their business did not make and it ended up collapsing. This thrown Papa T into financial crisis.
He resorted to doing the boda boda but as a part time hustle since he did not own a motorbike. Nobody would trust him with a motorbike as he was still underage. He would only be given a customer to take to their destination by someone who owns a motorbike in what is known as Squad.
Papa T used to attend a lot of Ohangla live bands which furthered his interest in music. He decided to join Freddy Jaseme’s band but only lasted a week as he had problems raising fare. He then made up his mind to save little money through his mom for recording his first song.
He managed to save enough to enable him record at Utawa Studio of Jeff Wuonyatanga. He gives a lot of credit to Jeff and his wife whom he says all received and helped him a lot. Jeff, according to Papa T, treated him as a brother.
His first song is Pokokethore and since then he has done a lot of songs and even did a collabo with Freddy Jakadongo in the song Hera Mogwedhi. His most popular song so far is Vera which is less than six months old but has fetched over 1.3M views in YouTube.
