Bankslave at work on a portrait mural in Nairobi, September 2026. Photo: Bankslave / Instagram @bankslave
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Bankslave: the Kibera-born graffiti artist whose murals went from a peace train to City Hall.
Kibera Creatives is a KNN series on the artists, designers and performers who built their names from Kibera. Profiles are compiled from published reports and the subjects' own public pages; sources are listed at the end. Spotted an error? Write to news@kibranewsnetwork.co.ke.
Bankslave is the tag of a graffiti and mural artist with the surname Esendi, widely described as a pioneer of Kenyan graffiti. NPR reported in 2013 that he was born in Kibera and still lived there. He has been painting walls since the early 2000s, studied at the Buruburu School of Fine Arts before leaving to paint full time, and is a member of the Spray Uzi collective.
The peace train
In February 2013, before that year's election, he brought Nairobi's graffiti artists together to paint a ten-car commuter train that runs through Kibera, with permission from Rift Valley Railways. It was done in one night, as part of the Kibera Walls for Peace project, and he painted a portrait of Barack Obama on it. "We're trying to make the train look beautiful so everyone likes it," he told NPR. His advice to young artists in the same interview: "If you have the talent, go ahead and do it. Do art."
Walls since
His 2014 portrait of Lupita Nyong'o at the GoDown Arts Centre became one of the best-known pieces of Kenyan street art. That year he ran a graffiti workshop at OKFestival in Berlin with Uhuru B and Swift9. In 2017 he exhibited and painted a street mural in Adelaide, Australia, as part of the SANAA show at the University of South Australia. In 2018 he painted a city skyline for the Hilton Garden Inn at Nairobi's airport.
On 7 September 2023 Nairobi County and UNEP commissioned him to mark Clean Air Day with a mural on the City Hall fence facing KICC, a tribute to Ella Kissi-Debrah, the London girl whose death was linked to air pollution. It took three days. His Kibera work includes a mural of the late rapper E-Sir at Fort Jesus, and he painted Eliud Kipchoge on Kenyatta Avenue.
"Street art is not selfish; it brings colour to the world," he said in a 2017 interview.
Sources: NPR, 19 Feb 2013; Joel Bergner, Kibera Walls for Peace, 2013;, 7 Sep 2023; Business Daily, 28 Jun 2018; University of South Australia, 2017; OKFestival, 2014; Tuko interview, 2017; bankslave.art.
That was a Kibra News Network report, read by an A I voice.
Kibera Creatives is a KNN series on the artists, designers and performers who built their names from Kibera. Profiles are compiled from published reports and the subjects’ own public pages; sources are listed at the end. Spotted an error? Write to news@kibranewsnetwork.co.ke.
Bankslave is the tag of a graffiti and mural artist with the surname Esendi, widely described as a pioneer of Kenyan graffiti. NPR reported in 2013 that he was born in Kibera and still lived there. He has been painting walls since the early 2000s, studied at the Buruburu School of Fine Arts before leaving to paint full time, and is a member of the Spray Uzi collective.
The peace train
In February 2013, before that year’s election, he brought Nairobi’s graffiti artists together to paint a ten-car commuter train that runs through Kibera, with permission from Rift Valley Railways. It was done in one night, as part of the Kibera Walls for Peace project, and he painted a portrait of Barack Obama on it. “We’re trying to make the train look beautiful so everyone likes it,” he told NPR. His advice to young artists in the same interview: “If you have the talent, go ahead and do it. Do art.”
Walls since
His 2014 portrait of Lupita Nyong’o at the GoDown Arts Centre became one of the best-known pieces of Kenyan street art. That year he ran a graffiti workshop at OKFestival in Berlin with Uhuru B and Swift9. In 2017 he exhibited and painted a street mural in Adelaide, Australia, as part of the SANAA show at the University of South Australia. In 2018 he painted a city skyline for the Hilton Garden Inn at Nairobi’s airport.
On 7 September 2023 Nairobi County and UNEP commissioned him to mark Clean Air Day with a mural on the City Hall fence facing KICC, a tribute to Ella Kissi-Debrah, the London girl whose death was linked to air pollution. It took three days. His Kibera work includes a mural of the late rapper E-Sir at Fort Jesus, and he painted Eliud Kipchoge on Kenyatta Avenue.
“Street art is not selfish; it brings colour to the world,” he said in a 2017 interview.
KNN Newsroom is the staff byline for stories written, rewritten and edited at the Kibra News Network desk. Where a story credits an outside outlet, the original source is linked at the foot of the piece.
