Nu Nairobi: 5 Years Later
The year is 2015 and the top charting songs are “Hotline Bling”, “Lean On”, “King Kunta”, “Hello” and “How Deep Is Your Love”. Sauti Sol is releasing singles like “Sura Yako” and “Isabella” leading up to their third studio album “Live And Die in Afrika”. The go to club was Brew Bistro and everybody still had dreams of going to Tomorrowland and Ultra Music Festival.
Kenyan art and talent still wasn’t being given much airtime by big media houses or publishing platforms. In the streets, our culture seemed dormant and flatlined, but as the saying famously goes ~ the revolution will not be televised. At least not immediately. Within the homes of a few, seeds of an alternative scene were being sown bit by bit into what would cultivate a creative cultural shift in the country.
XENIA MANASSEH
The Music
Everybody knows that SoundCloud was/is the building block of what Nu Nairobi is today. In 2015, urban music hailing from Nairobi wasn’t too common to hear around. We had the likes of Camp Mulla (who had split up for a time by then) and Just A Band, who’s music was very niche and not yet popularised by radio or any other local media platforms ~ that is until a spark was ignited.
Creatives Garage really held it down during the incubation stages of Nu Nairobi. There was a kind of awakening that happened that year that I can’t really explain - it didn’t happen online, it wasn’t broadcasted on TV, you just had to be there for it. This is when the first Africa Nouveau Festival was held, a two day event curated for oddball creatives residing in Nairobi and the diaspora. That particular festival connected Nairobi to Jojo Abot, the true High Priestess of Nu Nairobi. By 2016, the creative volcanos of alternative juice were bubbling and erupting. Everyday other day there were songs being released by those who resided or resonated with this scene and traction for their content was building up by week. Regardless of this, it never quite felt like the appreciation was enough and I personally felt like I was the only one interested in pushing these sounds out into the world. I did my best to do this while working in some of these big media houses but the “it's not Kenyan enough” corporate rhyme eventually got tiring and that was when I decided to become a DJ by profession - and a Nu Nairobi pioneering DJ at that! Over the years, we’ve seen more musicians and collectives such as Le Ru and XPRSO creating and releasing inspired music from either the comfort of their homes, state of the art sound studios or both. Artists and musicians are taking their work more seriously by understanding the business side of things and the ideology of making a “Kenyan sound” is well out if its way. People are now way more accepting of whatever music a creative from Nairobi wants to make. There’s a confidence present in the scene to create from an experimental place and go with your artistic gut. As Kenya would have it, this confidence was first built through outside recognition of the quality of the alternative and very little support from Kenyans, but is now slowly solidifying into a steady foundation here at home.
The Concerts/Events
I remember listening to MSFTS Rep. on SoundCloud just before Nu Nairobi sparked up, wondering when I would be able to listen to/attend live shows and concerts of that nature here in my hometown and that if I wanted to, would I have to fly out? That wonder was blown away from my mind like a flame by the wind almost as if it was an immediate manifestation of my thoughts when I discovered Creatives Garage (Kirichwa Road version) for the space it provided for raw organic growth. They provided a space for ALT kids to meet up, chat, brainstorm ideas, produce, sing, rap, paint, smoke, film, podcast, experiment and overall bond over these gaps we saw existing in our creative scene and the dreams we all aspired to pursue despite the adversities.
Fridays at CG was the biggest blessing to anyone who felt like they had found their tribe amongst these troupes of people. Eventually, CG decided that party time was over and business needed to go back as usual, so Jojo Abot introduced us to The Alchemist Bar soon after. The Alchemist is another pioneering cultural art space that we naturally shifted into that helped the scene grow over the years and to this day remains a gem to the #Nu. All sorts of experimental events have been held there: whether granted full proof success or not. It is where I first deejayed and where most of my favourite gigs have been done. It’s the spot that lets the outsiders in and gives them a chance to shine simply because culture + art is vastly more important than just money. It is where I can both play and hear music I really want to indulge myself in without any bias. It’s Nu Nairobi’s home. Events that turned into concerts like Thrift Social have all played an intricate role in shifting the culture, especially by way of fusing alternative fashion, food and music. Collectives and bands such as EA Wave, Yellow Light Machine and XPRSO are able to produce their own events and even travel for residences, workshops and concerts that uplift them because of this. Remember the authentication that the Nu Nairobi music scene received from attracting and playing for Boiler Room when they first came to Kenya in 2018? How exciting was that for all of us? Only Nu Nairobi could have done that. Don’t even get me started on Nyege Nyege or Kilifi New Year Festival. Common folk could never produce that, not even in their wildest dreams. Muthoni Drummer Queen herself said that Africa Nouveau Festival is inspired by the freshness of Nu Nairobi. Artists like her and Blinky Bill continue to show us that it is possible to play for hundreds of thousands of fans around the world and connect with platforms such as TED Talks and become TED Fellows. The sky is barely the limit.
Two new great forces in the events/party industry (which I am also both associated with) would doubtfully have been as successful as they are without the passion, tenacity and the collaborative approach of this iconic scene. I’m talking about MUZE (f.k.a Backyard Bass) and Nairobi R&B. Looking back at the past five years, it’s hard not to appreciate the ears, eyes, minds and doors Nu Nairobi has helped open up for Kenyan culture. In the last 5 years we have not only gotten to experience live shows that we deserve, but we also embraced artists whose music we adore. From Masego to Nonso Amadi, KAMAAU to Xenia Manasseh, Bas to Boutross Munene, Karun to Blinky Bill, OSHUN to IAMDDB, and even Dj’s like myself (SHISHI), Freesia Flow, TAIO, Coco Em ~ the list goes on.
The Fashion
Who can forget how mainstream Kenya made fun of Thrift Social attendees for expressing themselves through out of the box fashion that wasn’t exactly in magazine trends? And yet we now have numerous fashion brands, stores, stylists and makeup artists that set trends by way of allowing themselves to fully express themselves by way of gaining inspiration through those exact platforms.
ALEXIS NEREAH BY ADELE DEJAK
I love what fashion in Nairobi is today. Most Kenyans are very stylish, all it takes is a little push in the right direction. When I think of Nu Nairobi fashion then vs now, Alexis Nereah unmistakably comes to mind. A muse before most, a trend setter before many. Now she runs a store called Wardrobe Banter to fulfil the fashion needs of these same progressive ALT kids she started with and those she’s inspired over the years.
Today we have stylists such as Luca Kenya, Clinton Kanga and fashion brands like Metamorphisized, Bonkerz, Bongosawa and Nairobi Apparel District (just to name a few) keeping the streets stylish as ever. There is literally no excuse to have basic clothes in your closet, music videos, fashion shoots, events, meetings or even ordinary coffee dates.
The Culture
What Nairobi’s creative scene was five years ago is not what it is now, and Nu Nairobi has undoubtedly played a major role in that. Over the years people have been forced to embrace the new and the unknown artistically, creatively and culturally. From the music we listen to, the events we go for and the clothes we wear, to the things we talk about, our inspirations and what we aspire to create. Looking back I remember how some people around me would try to make fun of me and others participating in this “weirdness” and them not understanding the vision of what we could see was going to be. If you’ve ever been into “different” things, called an Oreo for liking non-black art, labelled a hippie, hipster, theatre-kid etc, then you know that most people don’t see or experience the world in the same ways that you do. Around 2017/2018, the scene had laid its foundation as a culture that was promised to thrive and here to stay. Around the same time, we were also labelled as a “rich/cool kids” scene that didn’t grant access to less fortunate creatives in Nairobi when really everyone was welcome to find their own seat at the table provided they actually brought something palatable to it.
MEL FROM MARS
It was very interesting to see the shift of perspective go from “this is so weird” to “I want in” in a span of a year. Suddenly it was cool to be weird in Nairobi. Ironic isn’t it? Afri-na-ladi, a community that described itself as a collaborative multimedia residency featuring a selection of Africa’s most innovative *underground* artists in FILM/PHOTOGRAPHY, MUSIC, FASHION & LITERATURE whose tagline was “making something out of nothing (but ourselves)” curated by Ghanain artist Jojo Abot truly was the flood gates opening moment to this cultural shift. Aside from Jojo, the commune consisted of EA Wave, Brain Msafiri, Prsica Ojwang, Neema Githere and Alexis Nereah who to this day are making waves in their respective pursuits. In 2020 this tenacious DIY approach for creating art, music, films, safe spaces, events, campaigns, clothes and much more is still very much alive and evident. It goes beyond the names mentioned in this article. Nu Nairobi is literally a culture of making something out of nothing (but ourselves). Be it alternative Hip-Hop, alternative R&B, Shrap music, electronic music, experimental downtempo, grungy music videos, avant garde fashion designs ~ if it’s an alternative to the corporate mainstream, it’s Nu Nairobi. If you had to fight to be seen and heard, it simply is Nu Nairobi.
The industry that keeps on giving
Finally, the amount of creative opportunities that have been created in the past five years (though still has a long way to go) is a lot more than we could have imagined five years ago. We have more writers, more filmmakers, more fashion designers, more music producers, more podcasters and more DJ’s thinking outside the box. The most pleasing pursuits for me to see, currently, are all the creative video directors and fashion designers + stylists growing and embracing their genius in a city as harsh as ours. Opportunities that couldn’t have been created without the demand of gaps needing to be filled urgently in an industry as infant as ours. We don’t all have to have the textbook industrial jobs of the 80’s, we can instead pursue our dreams and turn our hobbies/interests into actual careers ~ and if we work smart enough, we can live off these pursuits for a lifetime.
Gatekeepers definitely still exist, but their locks are getting rusty and we can’t wait to continue breaking through them for the many years to come. As a pioneering member and proud member of this subculture I’m here to vocalise how proud I am of us for maintaining weirdness, staying motivated, standing strong, embracing unique creativity and making it thus far together.
Here’s to five years 🥂
None of us could have done it without the other.
