Khaligraph Jones

Khaligraph Jones is a Kenyan rapper from Kayole, Nairobi who rose through battle circuits and relentless self-belief to become the loudest standard-bearer for Kenyan hip hop at home and across the continent.

Updated on: 27/01/2026

About Khaligraph Jones

Brian Ouko Omollo (born 12 Jun 1990), better known as Khaligraph Jones, is a Kayole-bred rapper who built his name the hard way: through Kenya’s battle circuits, freestyle rooms, and the kind of early-years grind that doesn’t come with shortcuts. By the late 2000s, he was already stepping into wider view through competitive platforms that rewarded breath-control, nerve, and clean execution -an early signal of the technical discipline that would become his calling card.

Over the years, Khaligraph’s presence has grown into a whole posture with “OG” becoming both persona and claim, backed by an independent engine and a catalogue that treats rap as craft, not decoration. His debut studio album, Testimony 1990, landed like an autobiography with the volume turned up: personal, street-aware, and built to announce Kenyan rap ambition beyond its borders. He later expanded the arc with projects like Invisible Currency and THE BOOK OF JONES 1st CHAPTER, records that lean into range, from pure bars to wider, sometimes cross-border, pop-facing choices, all this without surrendering his rapper-first centre of gravity.

If the albums are the official record, the collaborations are where you see his instincts for scale. He has consistently treated features as cultural diplomacy, linking Nairobi’s rap voice to the wider continent, moving between Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and beyond with the ease of an artist who understands that hip hop is a shared language. And alongside the formal releases, he has used the Khali Cartel cypher series as an arena: part roll-call, part proving ground, in a format where Kenya’s new-school and old-guard can stand in the same frame and be judged by the same mic.

Recognition has followed, not as a coronation, but as a reflection of reach. Pan-African awards and international nominations have helped frame him as one of the region’s most visible rap exports, but the real Khaligraph story has always been simpler: stamina, self-belief, and an appetite for competition that never really switches off. He is also the founder of Blu Ink, a homegrown music label that reflects his bigger mission to build infrastructure around Kenyan hip hop and African music in general.

What makes his run feel durable isn’t only output, it’s how deliberately he has shaped the ecosystem around him: the label infrastructure, the cyphers, the constant public insistence that rap in Kenya can be premium, competitive, and export-ready without begging for permission. In Khaligraph’s world, the mic is not a hobby. It’s a standard.