{"id":31487,"date":"2026-04-10T18:21:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=31487"},"modified":"2026-04-10T18:21:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:21:25","slug":"tanzanian-musician-charged-with-rape-in-kenya","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/tanzanian-musician-charged-with-rape-in-kenya\/","title":{"rendered":"Tanzanian musician charged with rape in Kenya"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tanzanian singer Sefu Shabani, widely known as Matonya, has been arrested and charged with rape in Kenya.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The 43-year-old denied the charge when he appeared before a court in the coastal city of Mombasa.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Kenya\u2019s Director of Public Prosecutions said in a statement on X that the court granted him bail set at $4 000 and ordered him to surrender his Tanzanian passport.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Matonya is a well-known figure in East African music, popular for his \u201cbongo flava\u201d style, a genre from Tanzania that blends Swahili lyrics, romantic melodies and urban beats, often influenced by coastal taarab music.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors told the court that the alleged incident took place at an apartment in Nyali, a beach area in Mombasa, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23505,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-31487","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Tanzanian singer Sefu Shabani, widely known as Matonya, has been arrested and charged with rape","published_date":"2026-04-10 18:19:39","news_description":"Tanzanian singer Sefu Shabani, widely known as Matonya, has been arrested and charged with rape","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31488,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31487\/revisions\/31488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=31487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}