Former Sol Generation signee, Bensol, has shared a deeply personal experience that left him broken but transformed his music career.
In an interview with Philip Karanja on YouTube, the singer-songwriter recounted a period when his health deteriorated so severely that it nearly derailed his life and relationships.
“A lot of things have happened in my life that I can attest were all by God’s doing and plan, but to pick one… there was a time when I was sick, and I genuinely felt like I was going to die,” BenSol revealed.
During this challenging time, Bensol says his then-girlfriend ended their relationship due to his deteriorating condition.
“Her family was like, ‘Huyu jamaa kwanza vile anakaa kukufa, maybe he even has AIDS,’ because I was sick and had lost a lot of weight,” he shared.
However, Bensol clarified that contrary to the speculations, he had been battling tuberculosis (TB), a disease that had taken a toll on his body and left him physically weakened.
As his health worsened, he had no choice but to return to his family home, a move that, unexpectedly, became a turning point in his career.
“I was too skinny… but I feel like everything that happened was necessary in my life. I went back home, I had lost my voice, I couldn’t sing, so I was just writing songs,” Bensol said.
Isolated from the noise of the outside world, he focused on songwriting, channeling his emotions and imagination into crafting music.
“I penned a lot of songs from my imagination, trying to envision how they’d sound. I’d try to record them in my head in the huskiest voice, but I came up with the most amazing songs,” he recounted.
This reflective, meditative approach to songwriting unlocked a new creative process for BenSol, which has become central to his music-making today.
“That unlocked something in me, and I learned to write from my subconscious. These days, even when I go to the studio, I don’t like writing with loud music. I like going somewhere far and quiet, envisioning the song, seeing how life is happening around me, and I get the purest words from that,” he explained.
BenSol added that this process, though unconventional, has produced some of his best work, even though others in the industry sometimes struggle to understand it.
“I try explaining that to people and other artists, and sometimes they don’t get it. I just see the music,” he said.
