I listened to Aki Sioni by Njerae so much in 2024 that whenever I hear it now, I find myself reminiscing. I smile at the questionable relationship decisions I've made simply because I was smitten and blinded by infatuation. Malaika by Nyashinski made me want to be loved so badly in my teenage years, while Namwogopa Mungu Pekee gave me courage when living felt like swimming through murky waters.
These songs, and many others, soundtrack my life in ways that Western music simply cannot. Sweet Love by Wahu takes me straight back to coming home from school and fighting with my siblings over the remote, me insisting on The Beat while she fought for Cartoon Network.
Whenever I listen to rhumba, zouk or soukous I think of sunny Sundays spent making chapatis with my cousin as she advised me on campus life and the importance of making good choices. When I hear Benga and Ohangla, flashes of village life appear before me. I think of moments of light laughter breaking through grief after a Luo burial ceremony or the energy of campaign season in Oyugis town.
Even Afrobeats feels deeply Kenyan to me. It screams Kisumu. It reminds me of Maseno, negotiating bus fare with conductors and feeling anxious about whether I was being overcharged. It reminds me of the heat, the humidity, and the beautiful dark-skinned girls smiling as we passed each other on our way to Siriba campus. The Kenyan music experience, at least for me, is a blend of Kenyan sounds and African beats, all intertwined with memory.
Perhaps this attachment makes sense because I am homesick more often than I would like to admit. Kenyan music is one of the things that keeps me connected to my roots and sharpens memories that might otherwise become blurred with time.
That is probably why I will always remember attending Bien's concert in Paris in 2024. It was a last-minute decision. I wasn't living anywhere near Paris at the time, but my friends kept posting about the concert on Instagram and their excitement became contagious. A sudden wave of FOMO took over me. I had already missed Sauti Sol's
Barcelona concert in 2022 and I wasn't about to make the same mistake twice.
The tickets were surprisingly affordable. I paid around 28 euros, which felt absurdly cheap compared to what I expected. We sang, screamed, jumped and stayed for the after-party. I still remember us chanting, "Don't fight the feeling, when you found someone you love we kwama naye," before singing along to, "I don't want to be an A student working for the B student kwa company ya C student in the land of a D student."
It does not get more Kenyan than that.
As far as albums go, Alusa Why Are You Topless? is up there with the greats.
Yet as much as I love Kenyan music now, I have to admit that I once underestimated it.
For a long time, I thought Kenyan music lacked variety. In reality, I simply wasn't looking hard enough. I was only listening to whatever was trending. If a song was getting radio play, appearing on TikTok or being discussed online, I assumed it represented the best Kenyan music had to offer. Anything outside those spaces was practically invisible to me.
Then I started discovering artists like Xeniah Manasseh, Karun, Maya Amolo, Nikita Kering', Bridget Blue, Hilda Watiri, Stacy Kamatu, Emma Cheruto, Zaituni, We Are Nubia, Brandy Maina, Sanaipei Tande,Muthaka and Cheruu. Shad mziki, Ochiko, Kethan, Kinoti … the list is endless
I still remember listening to Lowkey by Xeniah Manasseh and casually mentioning to my roommate how much I loved the song. When she told me Xeniah was Kenyan, I nearly jumped out of my seat.
Looking back, I think my standards for Kenyan music had been shaped by the bandwagon effect. I knew Karun from Camp Mulla, but beyond that I had not really explored Kenyan female R&B and soul. The problem wasn't the music. The problem was me.
I had confused visibility with quality.
It's a surprisingly common mistake. We log onto Netflix and immediately watch whatever is in the Top 10. We discover Substack articles through TikTok and assume the articles with hundreds of likes must be the best ones. Virality is funny that way. Sometimes excellent work goes unnoticed while something average explodes simply because it landed in front of the right audience at the right time.
The same thing happens with Kenyan music.
There are incredible artists creating beautiful work that never reaches mainstream audiences because promotion costs money and many artists simply do not have access to those resources. Discovering them takes effort.
When I first listened to Shad Mziki on the Safari Collaboration project with Watendawili, I immediately wondered who this mellow-voiced artist was. I opened his profile, went through his catalogue and applied what I jokingly call the one-minute test: listen to each song for a minute and decide whether it deserves a deeper listen. Most of them were definite hits.
One of Spotify's greatest strengths is that it rewards curiosity. Scroll down far enough and you'll find artists with similar sounds. More often than not, many of them are under-streamed and overlooked. Through that process, I keep finding fresh Kenyan music. Songs that do not appear on my TikTok feed every two scrolls and songs that have room to grow on me over time.
That is why I find it difficult when people claim that Kenyan music has a diversity problem or a quality-over-quantity problem.
You cannot approach music listening lazily.
Good Kenyan music may never find you on its own. Unfortunately, not every talented artist has the budget to push their work into your algorithm. Sometimes the listener has to do some of the work too.
We cannot ignore the economic realities artists face. We gate-crash events. We complain about ticket prices. We are more willing to attend a free concert than pay to support local artists. Music is a business and inflation is hitting everyone.
I do not have a grand solution. This is not my area of expertise. What I do know is that I love Kenyan music.
I relate to Jua Cali's Bidii Yangu. I love Zilizopendwa. I miss the playful era of Kenyan gospel music from the mid-2000s. I love dancing to Urbantone music that doesn't degrade women. I love watching artists like Maandy, Dyana Cods and Femi One keep Kenyan female rap alive.
And the truth is, I have only scratched the surface. I haven't even talked about my love for Genge, which is not to be confused with Gengetone.
Curiosity and research should not be limited to academia. They belong in art too. Before you decide that you dislike Kenyan music, give it the same grace you would give a book, a subject or a place you do not yet understand. Go beyond what is trending. Go beyond what the algorithm serves you.
You may still decide that you do not like it. But at least let that opinion come after exploration rather than assumption.
There is far more to Kenyan music than most of us realize if we are willing to dig a little deeper. For years, we asked Kenyan radio stations to play more Kenyan music. Then we asked Kenyan artists to be more creative, more diverse and more innovative. But have we ever asked ourselves to listen to Kenyan music?