Many people describe their parents with great emotion, but the way Padi Wubonn speaks about his father will stick with you. His eyes beam with joy when he speaks of him. See, his father, Bonventure Atweng’a, is deceased, but the memories they shared live on.

Padi, real name David Omondi, grew up following his father’s footsteps, whom he says was an entertainer. Although his father was a government employee, he had an entertaining aura around him that glued him to people. In many of his escapades, he’d use Padi, his last born, as a prop for his jokes. This formed the foundation that launched his son into the world of entertainment.

“My father would entertain people by having me dance, march and entertain his guests. He used to call me his bodyguard and once bought me a uniform similar to his as a D.O.” he says.

As a token of appreciation, people would shower him with small gifts such as sweets, clothes and money. Gradually, he started seeing himself as an entertainer.

With the petty cash Padi was ‘earning’, he bought a small keyboard to play music, something he learnt to appreciate from his father, who loved the reggae, roots and rhumba music genres.

Then his father died.

His world crumbled. He, however, found solace in the drama club while at Ramba Boys High School. Drama club was the one place he felt like himself.

“After high school, I wanted to pursue architecture, but due to lack of school fees, I could not go to college,” he says.

He became a mango juice seller at a matatu/bus terminus in the CBD. This would mean early mornings at Marikiti, in Nairobi to buy the mangoes and later juicing them.

Unfortunately, selling juice wasn’t putting much in Padi’s pockets. He tried his hand in carpentry, plumbing, masonry, unblocking sewers and selling secondhand clothes. It wasn’t long before his path took him back to the world of entertainment, where his journey began by recording music, writing scripts, acting and even directing.

It is during this time that he got to work with former Redykullas comedian Peter Kaimenyi, famously known as Kajairo, who introduced him to the world of pranks and parodies.

Padi’s first parody video was about food. It was inspired by his sister Emily Atweng’a. The response after the video went up online gave him the impetus to keep doing more. His big parody break came when he did a collaboration with Kajairo on a Sauti Sol song, Gentleman and dubbed it Mjengo Man.

The song was shared on YouTube, on Kenyan mainstream media houses and the reception was beyond his expectation. This brought much-needed exposure, attention as well as recognition.

He has never looked back.

“I have to enjoy a song before I create, if I don’t feel it, I don’t work with it.” Being clear on what works for him or not is part of his success journey because it sets him apart from other parody creators who focus on quantity as opposed to quality.

Padi attributes a huge share of his success to social media. It provided a platform for creators like him to produce and deliver content to their fan base easily.

In his early content creating days, he says, getting airplay on mainstream media was quite a hustle because local content was not being embraced as much as foreign content.

Traditional media was also the main source of entertainment at the time and this restricted their fan base because certain shows could only air at specific days and for a scheduled period.

“However, social media platforms have been the much-needed game changer as they are an everyday space and all a fan has to do is search online for whatever content they want to watch,” he says?

Technology and internet availability have eased content production and distribution. Now, Padi sets up his tripod, acts out his skit or song, the recording is then edited, mastered and thereafter released to his over 255,000 subscribers on YouTube, 46,400 followers on Instagram and 10,700 followers on Facebook.

But the big numbers online, also expose him to cyberbullying.

According to Padi, d his inboxes and private message are full of women writing him “sweet nothings”.

One time, he put up his personal number online but had to quickly take it down.

He says: “Social media gives people the illusion that they know you personally and can impose their notions on you. I have had to develop a thick skin over the years and learnt how to manage the bullies.”

Because his specialty is parody, he has clashed paths with other artists. For instance, working with his creative team, he released a parody song dubbed Alcohol’s plan whose original title is God’s Plan by Canadian rapper, Drake.

The parody did great online, with hundreds of thousands shares. But this virality caught the attention of Drake’s management. Consequently, the song was pulled down from YouTube due to copyright infringement issues. In retrospect, he considers it a costly rookie mistake as they failed to credit the original song owner.

A tough lesson that taught him key skills in his journey as an entertainer, especially on the virtual stage.