Safari Martins guides his client, Ian Njenga, into a modest shack located on a countryside road in Kiambu, near the outskirts of Nairobi’s bustling metropolis.

The walls of the shack are adorned with various tools: a shovel, an iron, agricultural shears, and a wrench. However, Njenga isn’t there to purchase any equipment.

He’s there for a haircut.

“I just use unconventional tools,” Martins explains with a grin as he prepares to use the sharp edge of a shovel to expertly trim Njenga’s hair, initiating a unique series of maneuvers that result in a surprisingly tidy haircut.

Martins’ use of unorthodox tools has become his signature style. Known as Chief Safro on social media, he has become one of Kenya’s most prominent barbers, amassing around one million followers each on Instagram and TikTok.

As he makes precision cuts across Njenga’s head, a helper stands to the side, capturing every moment from different angles on a smartphone camera.

Influencer barbers are a new trend in Kenya, where social media usage has exploded in recent years and platforms like TikTok are being used both for entertainment and as a lucrative side hustle.

Born in Rwanda and now based in Nairobi, Martins got his start barbering in high school in 2018.

Using borrowed clippers, he began offering trims outside classrooms and in cramped dormitories.

Five years later, he added a camera and dropped a conventional trimmer and never turned back.

Martins went viral for zany barbering methods, but he has increasingly incorporated traditional African folk tales into voiceovers on his videos.

“I’m motivated by African culture, by African stories,” he says, adding that one of his tools, a sharpened iron box, was blessed by village elders.

The barber’s staying power has come from the haircuts themselves, which his customers say they love and the chance to be featured on one of Kenya’s most magnetic social media accounts.

“If I compare him with other barbers his talent is next level,” says Njenga, who first visited Martins last year.

“When I get shaved here I get very comfortable … while walking in the streets I get very confident.”

The draw of a unique barbering experience and five minutes of social media fame is enough for customers to push past the price.

Martins charges up to 1500 Kenyan shillings, or about $17, for one of his cuts, a hefty premium in Nairobi, where men may pay a tenth of that for a trim.

The popularity of Martins and other content creator barbers has come amid the breakneck growth of social media in Kenya.

In January 2023, there were just 10.6 million social media users in the country, according to DataReportal, a market research group.

By January 2025, that number had increased almost 50 per cent, to 15.1 million.

With monetisation of social media content often benchmarked to Western digital advertising rates, finding success online can also bring a relative windfall to Kenyans.

Around 15 per cent of Kenyans engaged in online content creation rely on it as their primary source of income, the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, a think tank, said in a June 2025 brief.

Nevertheless, Martins complains that barbers do not not reap the same rewards as other content creators, and he is right.

Some of the highest-paid creators are those who make gaming, education, or lifestyle content, according to Fundmates, a company that finances influencers, because of the wide applicability of brand deals in these niches.

“Barbers get viral on social media but I feel like they are not respected,” Martins said.

“You are not paid as a content creator, even though you have the views, even if you have the engagement.”