Dedan Juma is a Kenyan actor who has featured in top TV series such as Real House Helps of Kawangware and Pepeta on Showmax.

Acting as Detective on Real House helps of Kawangware and Zeze on Pepeta, Juma epitomizes a street- gang leader who has known no other life but that of crime.

Coincidentally, this is the kind of life he lived ten years ago at City Carton, a ghetto near Buru Buru Phase 1, where he was born and raised.

Being the only child, Juma’s mother tried her best to keep him off from criminal gangs of the ghetto. Every Sunday, she would take him to church, exposing him to a different perspective on life.

“My mother always showed me the importance of going to church and making the right decisions. On Sundays, she would take me to church, and I would see a different side of life. My mum had a small sukuma wiki kiosk in Gikomba market; whenever she went, I always tagged along. It was her way of trying to prevent me from joining groups in the ghetto’’ recalled Juma.

As he grew older, accompanying his mother everywhere wasn’t pleasing at all, and he opted to hanging out with his peers, who slowly recruited him into criminal gangs.

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“I would be given small jobs by the gang leaders, like delivering things and getting paid. I was in class eight, and I would get paid like Sh2000. This, to me, was a lot of money,” he added.

He recalled getting paid Sh15,000 and was excited that he would change his family’s life. His mother, however, rejected the money as a way of disapproving his son’s association with the gang.

”She never took it, and she slept hungry that day. I think she already knew that I did not get the money in a good way, and it was her way of trying to show me that she does not want me to be part of that life,’’ he said.

Despite his mother’s attempts to steer him away from a life of crime, he couldn’t let go and became one of the gang’s core pillars where he’d be among the team that snatched phones in Nairobi CBD.

He, however, changed for the better after closely watching his colleague identified as Martin, lynched to death during one of their robbery escapes in Githurai.

”This day that one person whom we believed could run fast was caught, and unfortunately, someone saw him change his clothes and demanded to tell him where the rest of us were hiding.  We were all there, and he could see us. Martin was lynched to death in front of us just because he did not give up our identity as the crowd wanted,” Juma said.

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It was after witnessing the brutal incident that Juma decided to look for an honest way of making money. He started working as a casual laborer on construction sites to support his mother.

He would also accompany his mother to church every Sunday, where he joined a talent group that sharpened his acting skills.

It was not long before a member of the group informed him about an audition for the local drama series Real Househelps of Kawangware. He later landed the role of detective, a character that completely mirrored his previous crime life.

After the show took a break in 2018, he engaged in hawking sweets in public service vehicles, where he says many people questioned him about his TV role.

He struggled for some years before he received a call that informed him about an audition for Pepeta – a drama series on Showmax. The call came at a time when his mum had also fallen ill and was admitted at a local hospital.

He did his best to land the role of Zeze, a hard-core criminal on Pepeta, and help his ailing mum, but unfortunately, his mum succumbed on the same day he got the acting job.