Uhakika: her verse on the song of the summer

Before Nafasi made her a name on the streaming platforms, Irene did what rappers have always done to get heard: she took the biggest beat in the country and wrote her own verse on it. In the summer of 2026 that beat was Uhakika (Remix) by Ibraah, one of Tanzania's songs of the season, and on 24 July 2026 she posted a YouTube short titled #uhakika remix, 1:02 long, with her own bars over it. She was posting as Miss Nasty, the name under which all her 2026 music was released before she became Irene in October.

By 5 October 2026 the short had been watched 3,890 times, which made it the third most-viewed upload on her channel, behind only the Nafasi video and Ndoto. A second take, uhakika remix, followed on 16 August 2026, 1:01 long, with 1,456 views by the same date.

The freestyle habit

The Uhakika shorts are part of a pattern that goes back to her first weeks on the channel. On 3 January 2026, ten days after Ndoto, she uploaded #leoremix, 56 seconds over the Leo instrumental, which has 1,760 views. Remixes like these are not collaborations, and Ibraah is not a credit on her records; they are calling cards, a way for a new voice to stand next to a hit and prove she belongs there. Three days after the second Uhakika short, Nafasi arrived with 20 Percent, and the proof was on the record.

Her bio says she works in Kiswahili, English and French, and the shorts are where that range gets exercised in public, in a minute or less, with no label and no release date, just a verse. Uhakika is Swahili for certainty, and there is a neat symmetry in a rapper borrowing a song called certainty to announce that she is sure of herself.

Watch both Uhakika shorts and the #leoremix on the videos page, then hear what the freestyles were building toward on the Nafasi release page.