Black X and Wasichana Wanachana: the cypher that gave her a stage

Irene's first stage was not a club. It was a cypher. Wasichana Wanachana, Kiswahili for the girls are tearing it up, is a Dar es Salaam platform for women rappers founded and directed by Black X, the music-video director also credited as XKATEL. It describes itself as a platform and safe space for girls to display their raw talent, and its YouTube channel of 92 videos, 2,490 subscribers and 128,792 views in October 2026 is where much of her early footage lives.

Black X, first name Erick, was introduced on Men The Podcast on 3 June 2026 as one of the most respected music-video directors in Tanzania; on TBC Radio Jamii he said he wanted to open doors for girls with rap talent. His Instagram counts 26,000 followers. He directed both volumes of the cypher and holds the Conductor credit on the Vol.1 streaming release, with the producer Bin Laden on the beats.

What the platform did for her

The collective uploaded her before anyone else did: a solo clip titled Miss Rapper Spitting Barz on 30 January 2026, tagging her channel. A week later she was one of four on Vol.1, released as Miss Nasty on the video and Miss Rapper on streaming, the names she carried before becoming Irene in October 2026. Black X's challenge reel took the cypher to 148,000 views; in July his teaser opened Vol.2, where she was one of nine. Through 2026 the collective took its crew to Clouds FM XXL, TBC 2, Crown TV, Mjini FM and East Africa Radio, and on 7 August to East Africa TV's Friday Night Live, where its own post named her as the one dropping hot lines. In September its TikTok summed up her Vol.2 verse in two words: Drill Cooking.

Watch both cyphers here, then open the Vol.1 and Vol.2 release pages and read the Friday Night Live story.