Maalim Omari Bakari Kichapwi’s artistic alias is Wimbi Kuu, which means ‘the big wave’. He was born in 1945, at Uteta Rufiki in Kibambo village, in the region of Pwani in Tanzania.

He has loved poetry since he was a teenager. He used to relish reading poems from other Swahili poets.

He’s been writing in 1963.