Conversation With Nyokabi Kariuki
By way of her occupation and inventive sonic vision, Nyokabi Kariũki’s impact on the Kenyan music scene warrants greater applause. Although the global music scene is witnessing a renaissance of African experimental sounds, the 23 year old Kenyan composer is one of the few women composers in the East African soundscape. Combining her 17-year classical training in piano, Nyokabi effortlessly defies the boundaries of genre by dabbling with classical contemporary to choral music, film, experimental pop, and East African musical tradition.
“In the western classical tradition, there’s more emphasis and value placed on precision. The freedom to tear away from that is super important to me”, says Nyokabi. As she embarks on a musical journey by attempting to bridge the contradiction in her African upbringing and Western classical training, her debut EP peace places: kenyan memories is an interrogation of what it means to belong. The six-track record is both sonically and thematically rich, anchored by spontaneous recordings of natural elements around Kenya. Each listen of the EP speaks to Nyokabi’s ability to merge tuneful elements with no seeming correlation to produce something distinctively gorgeous from their blend.
Nyokabi and I spoke about her debut EP released this week under London-based record label, SA Recordings.
What does the word ‘peace’ in the title of the EP signify?
I credit it back to Galu because I wrote that piece, which kicked off the EP, when I was in the US. It was the first summer during the pandemic, and I had no idea when I'd be back home because of the travel restrictions. I was extra homesick and imagining home really calmed that anxiety.
Your music is inspired by your cultural background. Tell me about how the disconnection with your hometown in Nairobi informed your EP?
I went to international schools in Nairobi that would teach a system that often didn’t make me and other Kenyan students feel seen. Like in primary school, Swahili was compulsory until year 5, but French until year 8 - it was so strange. I think the way it informs my work is in the fact that there's a lot of me looking back and mourning a cultural loss by way of not knowing how to speak my local languages with the same comfort as I do English. So I've been trying to learn or rediscover that now.
In regards to music, I have friends who studied music in curriculums created by Kenyan education bodies, and even some of them echo my experience, in that classes on African music were undernourished. It makes you realize how insidious colonialism is. So I have this desire of using my work to archive elements of our culture that I am learning about, that people can look back on.
What has it been like using your music as a tool to reform your relationship with home from while living abroad?
I like the word reform because it suggests that it's continually changing and I think that's spot on. The most immediate way I can see this kind of impact of connection back to Kenya is through my relationship with people from home. With ‘A Walk Through My Cũcũ Farm’ from peace places: kenyan memories, I had taken videos of my grandmother and I walking through the farm and had no intention of doing anything with them, but then I got home and felt like I should write a piece. There was an audio festival that was coming up so I submitted a piece to that but I didn't tell my family about it. And then I learnt that I was a finalist in the audio festival so I sent it to them like "oh by the way guys, your voices are on here." [laughs]
How did you feel about your family’s reaction? They sounded super casual about it [laughs]
Yeah! But since then I've noticed that my family is so excited about the music. Recently we went upcountry, where my dad has started using worms for fertilizers and he was like, 'can you hear that sound of the worms? You need to record that.' My extended family have also been so eager for me to record their stories and to find ways to use them in my music. I think people from home are seeing themselves in art and seeing that their stories are valuable. And I don't mean monetarily, I mean they are valuable within themselves.
When your work features such intimate parts of yourself and your culture, how do you feel about promoting or selling it?
Well, I mean there's a point to which I don't share. I know how to protect myself and the stories that I'm telling, and I try to do the same for others involved. At the same time I’m ok with sharing. I feel like artists are an important contribution to society because they drive conversation about subjects that people tend to avoid. In this project for instance, I'm the one who's like; 'well what does it mean if I don't know how to speak Kikuyu?'. Many people are also dealing with not knowing their native languages. With ‘Equator song’, I saw some commenters on twitter where people resonated with this loss of culture, while still feeling a connection to home. So in sharing, I think it has an element of validating other people’s feelings and experiences as well.
Does the intentionality spills over to some sort of responsibility when it comes to making work that’s culturally significant?
I mean I don’t think we all have a responsibility to make art that means something. Being an art maker means different things for different people. Some artists use it to reconcile, to escape, to express themselves. I use it to discover and rediscover my own culture amongst other things. There are so many functions of art.
The EP has an improv quality to it, so it's interesting for you to talk about intentionality- that your work makes space for both.
Yeah, but surely improvisation can also be intentional. Improv is a big part of my artistic expression. You know, I did all those classical music exams and I hated them. I hated that there were the ‘right notes’ and the ‘wrong notes’. There was no freedom. Even now I can tell you I don't remember much of my repertoire, but if you give me a piano I can improvise for hours. I think it’s a very natural thing. When you think about traditional African music, it could go on for hours and there's no written way of going about it.
How was it learning in an institution like NYU that values precision and accuracy in the way you described?
I think the first reason I wanted to learn composition was to exercise that freedom, compared to say if I decided I wanted to continue with piano performance. And it's also partly why I went to the US, as opposed to Europe where a lot of the composition courses seemed more based on maintaining the historic attachment to Bach and Beethoven and those kinds of rules. In the US, a lot of the American composers in this canon of western classical art came in the 20th century. You have John Cage, Morton Feldman, Meredith Monk - composers who were totally throwing out the rules. So I sensed that I would find my own voice at NYU. That being said, there were still instances of, “this is how it is, so you can't not do it.” But something that really helped was finding support systems, from friends to composition teachers — particularly Dr. Jerica Oblak, an incredible Slovenian composer who was my private composition teacher for one and a half years. She was very much about, 'you are unique. How can you share that in your music?' So I was grateful to have spaces to explore and experiment during that program.
I want to talk about your non-musical inspirations, like visual ones for instance.
We were talking about colors earlier but yeah, I love visual arts. I think emotionally as well as creatively I draw so much inspiration from them. That's why I sought out Naila Aroni, a dear childhood friend who is an incredible painter, to create art pieces for some of the tracks in the EP. The three paintings were then put together by Aspa Founti (graphic designer) to form the layout of the cover design, and if you buy the vinyl, you get an insert of one of Naila’s paintings too. It was just important to me to have art be a part of the EP, because I am inspired so much by image and color. And generally I just adore visual art, especially by African artists. I was just at Kuona Art Center the other day and I wished I could buy everything — artists like Dennis Muraguri have incredible work.
What has been the most surprising thing you've learnt about yourself throughout this process?
I'm realizing that I have so much imposter syndrome, and every time I write something and it's good and I like it and people like it, I always get scared that that's the last time I’m going to do that. And even now I still have that feeling -- like 'god I gotta write another work' and I’m so nervous about that. But I surprise myself with the music that I create and the fact that I keep making stuff that’s always, to me, stronger than what I made previously.
Now that you're in the post creation stage, are you still clouded by imposter syndrome? What are you feeling?
It's a lot of feelings. Sometimes when I listen to music that's out I remember the things that I was trying to change but ultimately couldn’t. But I tell myself that this is the best that I could do at the time and that’s good enough. So I’m really proud of it. I feel like SA recordings took this chance on me and it's very nice that it's ‘paying off’ in ways the industry considers ‘successful’, in terms of press attention, reviews and stuff, but for me the most meaningful is reactions are from people from home: from family and friends, but even new Kenyans that I’m meeting, some musicians and some not. That to me is my favourite part. My brother and my dad call my music ‘weird’ and I love that. I love that they sat and listened to the whole thing and they had thoughts about it. Or like Jimmy Rugami of Real Vinyl Guru who runs the amazing vinyl store in Kenyatta market. I sent the record to him and he had really lovely things to say. His words were, for sure, my favorite review. It means a lot to me that people from home are resonating with it. I forgot what your questions was [laughs]
[laughs] So you're having a great time.
[laughs] I'm having a great time. In fact I was thinking about how I didn't realize how meaningful it is to be releasing this while I'm in Kenya. I’m just so glad because the record is about home, so to be here while it’s coming out feels so special.
