Wasichana Wanachana Vol.1: four rappers and a name change

Wasichana Wanachana, Vol.1 is the record where Irene's name changed in public. The official video, published on the collective's YouTube channel on 6 February 2026, bills her as Miss Nasty. The streaming release that followed on 13 February lists its lyricists, and there she is still Miss Rapper, the name she had used on Ndoto seven weeks earlier. One song, two names, and the handle she had carried since 2023 finally on the marquee. She became Irene in October 2026.

Wasichana Wanachana is Kiswahili for the girls are tearing it up, and the cypher is exactly that: four women rappers, Black Queen, Barbie Mia, Miss Nasty and Commander Rich, trading verses over a Bin Laden beat for three minutes and twenty-five seconds, directed by the video director Black X and made in Dar es Salaam. Black Queen holds the composer credit; the release went out through the collective itself via Amuse.

How it landed

The run-up was short. On 30 January the collective uploaded a solo clip of her titled Miss Rapper Spitting Barz; on 2 February Black X teased the cypher on TikTok. By 5 October 2026 the Vol.1 video had 21,173 views, 637 likes and 304 comments, but the wider reach came from a challenge: Black X's #wasichanawanachanachallenge reel of 27 February reached 148,000 views and 13,000 likes. The same day, the national daily Mwananchi named Miss Rapper among the fast-rising female hip-hop artists on the record, her first mention in mainstream press. On 28 February Commander Rich posted the cypher on TikTok, tagging an account that still read Miss Rapper Tz.

Five months later the series returned with nine rappers on Vol.2, and in August the crew took the cypher to East Africa TV's Friday Night Live.

Watch the Vol.1 video here, then open the release page to stream it and visit the people page for Black X and the Wasichana Wanachana collective.