Intro to Exray Taniua Bio and achievements.

Growing up as a ghetto boy where anything and everything is meant to go wrong or even never work at all, Exray has managed to defy all those odds.

He has managed to make a career out of his music which he used to do just for the sake of having fun or passing time in the ghetto slums.

Exray is one of the pioneers of Gengetone Music and Lifestyle which started way back in 2016 and gained popularity around 2018.

He is a member of the popular trio boy band, Boondocks Gang, which comprise of himself, Odi Wa Muranga and Maddox.

He has managed to release a truckload of household hits including the popular nationwide hit ‘Sipangwingwi’(meaning, you cant organize me).

The song grew to become a national slogan which was used by everybody from the top politicians to the normal village or street people.

The song was brought much success to his brand as an artist apart from being a member of a boy band.

The song was also used as a theme song for the national campaigns of the Kenya Kwanza Coalition of political parties in 2022.

The success didn’t come that easy especially after coming from a pandemic which almost killed Gengetone music.

It been a rough and risky journey to the top; Exray has lived a true rags to riches story.

Here is the biography and the musical career of the Gengetone star, Exray.

Exray Taniua Background, Age, Real Name and Education.

Tonnie Kinyanjui popularly known as Exray a.k.a Taniua was born and raised in Eastlands Nairobi.

Exray was born in 1998 and spent most of his infant life in Saba Saba neighborhood of Kayole. This is where he did his primary education at a school called Imara Primary.

It is at this neighborhood that Exray met his childhood friends who would later introduce him to amateur crime and street life.

Fortunately or unfortunately, when he finished primary education his family relocated to Githurai 45, another dangerous neighborhood in Eastlands Nairobi.

For his high school education, he attended a total of four schools.

The street influence and teenage life didn’t mix well with the art of discipline that Exray was to learn in school.

He got expelled on frequent occasions leading to him transferring to different schools both in the city and upcountry.

Uhuru Boys High School is where Exray did his KCSE examination in 2016.

After high school he opened a movie shop where he learned most about entertainment and customer service.

After getting a lot of negative feedback from just observing the level of unemployment among the graduate youth in the streets and probably all over the country, Exray made a decision to drop his urge to join College.

His main goal was to make a career out of music even though he was still an underground artist struggling to make ends meet.

Plus he had to find away to get busy so that he doesn’t become imprisoned by the street lifestyle.

Crime in the slums is often dangerous to the point of denying you a way out because you might get killed for just trying to work hard, be successful and get out.

Everybody knows everybody and if you try to go live a good life elsewhere, ‘they’ will come after you and end your life if not rob you mercilessly.

At his young age, Exray Taniua has had a lot of trouble with the law, most of the time being totally innocent.

He has escaped a lot of bullets from the anti-crime unit police due to his close association with hardcore criminals from the slums.

Street/slum lifestyle is similar to being sentenced to a life imprisonment.

Exray Taniua Girlfriend.

As much as he creates party and predominantly ratchet music, Exray has been in a committed relationship for a long time.

He met with his girlfriend Wangui way back in 2018 before fame and money.

To Exray he believes that being in a relationship with her when he was still an underground artist was the best choice he ever made.

Read Also: The Biography of Odi Wa Muranga.

Fame, being a symbol of success to many, makes it hard to distinguish between true love and others who are there for the hussle pretending to love and care.

In those years being together, they haven’t yet gotten pregnant, which is still a better decision so far.

Exray Taniua Music Career.

 Starting out as a spoken word artist, doubling as an actor too, Exray had his first platform to showcase his talent outside high school in a catholic church.

He tried each every art of stage performance; be it spoken word, drama singing and dancing in high school.

After graduating the time came when he had to select the ones that he can start perfecting in real time and start making a living from it.

He joined a drama club at the Christ The King Catholic Church where he met his other friends who would later form a musical group, Boondocks Gang.

The drama club did well in the county government drama festival but shortly after that it was dismantled as everybody went their separate ways.

Since Exray and his friends, Odi Wa Muranga and Maddox , were still hungry and full of energy to learn about music and live stage performance, they majored all their energy into music.

Their first song they released was a gospel one. The problem was that the gospel industry was really low on making money.

Most of the time they were making good songs but i does not translate to a change in the bank account.

Exray decided to take a break from music and started doing events and promotions.

He started out with artists like Boutross  Munene and Barrak Jaccuzi In 2017 organizing and promoting events for stage performances.

It wasn’t easy but he had to do it to keep going and trying to figure out this music thing.

At this time he was also doing music video shoots for different Gengetone artists who were still coming up in the music scene.

Exray wrote and directed the ‘Instagram’ song by Ethic Entertainment who were still his close friends. He also shot a video for the Rico Gang, one of the successful gengetone music groups

Exray Taniua and the Boondocks Gang.

Around October 2018, he recorded a gengetone song ‘Rombosa’ under Boondocks Gang.

The song was later flagged out of YouTube due to some misunderstanding with the Education Minister at the time.

The content of the video was perceived as a mockery to the government official.

In the video, the vixens were in high school uniform and at the time, high school students were becoming unruly all over the country.

Later the group met with a studio director who liked their song, ‘Rombosa’ and agreed to record them a new song for free provided they write him another song.

Boondocks Gang recorded the ‘Peleka Na Rieng’ as a single which later became a hit song that introduced them to the gengetone music scene.

The video for the song was done by the group members themselves with a camcorder that thry could get access to.

Their aim at this time was not to make quality video but to make sure they are getting something done and move on to the next step.

The sing didn’t get an airplay at first after the release, so the group had to get back to doing construction jobs (Mjengo) to pay for rent and save up for the studio time.

With time, they quit doing construction since it was taking much of their time with little pay.

The whole group now moved in to live in the studio for over six months.

The survival tactics here were tough; they had to go to an extent of robbing people in order to survive all those months.

They recorded a second song called ‘Madam’ as a group while still trying to get shows making as little as Ksh 3000 per show.

To them, it was a great achievement seeing that their talent is paying and they were feeling accepted by the fans.

With the help of the legendary DJ and Gengetone producer VDJ Jones, they did a remix of the song ‘Peleka Na Rieng’ featuring Rankadah and Kristoff.

The song was a straight up hit and it was received well in the mainstream media, launching them as the new famous gengetone group.

The Boondocks Gang later released other hit songs like ‘Boko Haram’, ‘Mathogothanio’ and many more.

Their journey of fame started from there, the boys ran with it. They did shows all over the country with a record of six shows in one night.

Exray Taniua Net Worth and Cars.

After having a successful two year run in the music industry before the pandemic, Exray is definitely on the safe side when it comes to the size of the bank account.

Having been signed under Black Market Records as an artist, he didn’t have that much difficulty sustaining his lifestyle during lockdown.

Read Also: The Biography of VDJ Jones.

With his nationwide hit song ‘Sipangwingwi’, he had another good run immediately after the country was opened for business.

With his booking rates going for 2000 dollars per show and the deal he signed with the Kenya Kwanza Coalition to use his song in the campaign trail, Exray is definitely far above the poverty line.

As of late, with his fleet of sport cars and a house in Garden Estate, Exrays net worth is estimated to be over 250,000 dollars.

Exray Taniua Songs(Taniua Movement).

Here are some of the hit songs from Exray that will definitely bless your playlist.

Usherati ft Ndovu Kuu & Mejja.

Sipangwingwi ft Trio Mio & Ssaru

Na Sijanona (Taniua Movement)

KO ft Trio Mio & Seska

Mtaro ft Gwaash, Shagwah

Stingo

General ft Maddox

Mtaratara ft Mercury

Doshi Ngumu ft Dyana Codds

La Casa ft Chantelle

Telenovela ft Wangui

Dog Days.

You can stream more of Exrays singles and mixtapes on Boomplay.