NYOKABI KARIŨKI
Inside the wonderfully wonky world of this Nairobi sound artist and researcher
Creative direction
JAMIE BRYAN KIMANI
Words
WANJERI GAKURU
It’s a Sunday night at The Mist in Nairobi and a porous border exists between performer and audience in the back room of the basement club. A crowd has gathered in joyful expectation of Nyokabi Kariũki live in concert. The intimate set up puts them a few feet away from this towering figure who flits from mic to piano to laptop to effects pedals and an assortment of kalimbas. This is the perfect way for fans to encounter the soundmaker’s genius – not so much for Kariũki herself, though. “A hometown crowd can be quite nerve-wracking,” she tells me after the show. “There are so many people you know in the audience, and they are whose opinion you care about the most. It’s when you feel most vulnerable.”
This was a rare live performance for the composer, sound artist and artistic researcher who shot to meteoric fame in Kenya last November after a well-regarded feature on ColorsxStudios. Selected by the music showcase, among one of eight local musicians, Kariũki stood out with an arresting rendition of her song ‘Nazama’ from her second album, ‘Feeling Body’. Composed after battling long covid in 2021 and released in 2023, the record introduced listeners to some of her distinct sonic markers; ambient textures, tender, operatic singing and pitch-shifted instrumentals.
“My music is interested in looking into functions and philosophies around art and life within the African continent from before and after the colonial period,” she explains. “I want to engage with indigenous knowledge, try to find different ways of applying that to my work and think about how we can envision centring that knowledge in our future. I research about how our knowledge is stored in oral contexts and my music feels like a continuation of that.”
Kariũki holds a BM in Music Composition and a minor in Creative Writing from New York University and studied composition, orchestration and music technology at notable institutions in Paris including IRCAM and École Normale de Musique de Paris. She’s further expanded her musical language to include electronics, field recording and experimental sounds. This has all contributed to a musical practice that is happily weird. “I like the word because it acknowledges that something isn’t necessarily what people would expect and that’s fine. I’ve had to be okay with that. I think about really experimental music and how people can’t relate to it if it isn't within a framework they are used to,” she says.
Her unique lens has earned her accolades ranging from a 2021 Hearsay Award for a sound art piece, a residency at the Helsinki International Artists Programme and led to her receiving grants from New Music USA and the Foundation of Contemporary Arts. Kariũki has also collaborated and performed with Cello Octet Amsterdam (NL), the String Orchestra of Brooklyn (Brooklyn, NY) and Defunensemble (FI), and been commissioned to compose for film, dance and theatre.
“I want to engage with indigenous knowledge, find ways of applying that to my work and think about how we can centre that knowledge in our future”
Like many other unconventional Kenyan artists, Kariũki is fortunate to be meeting an industry that is receptive to alternative sounds. It has been 16 years since afro electropop collective Just A Band made a mark with ‘Iwinyo Piny’. There is more space to play now, especially for an artist who considers any kind of sound as fair game. Kariũki’s synesthetic ear makes no separations amongst bird song, rumbling lorries, snatches of conversation and instruments. “Field recordings are an essential part of the core symphony. I don’t see them as background or ambient music separate from the whole,” she says.
This has been apparent since her debut release, the 2022 EP, ‘peace places: kenyan memories’, which features sounds of the environment. This begs the question, who would listen? “My audience isn't something I thought about when I was making my music but experimental art has always fed mainstream sounds. So, I’ve always appreciated and understood the value of small and alternative scenes. A lot of forward-thinking musicians like Nabalayo, KMRU, ¡AC! and Kimina are trying something new. It might fail but because you are willing to take the risk, it is worth it,” she says.
“Field recordings are an essential part of the core symphony. I don’t see them as ambient music separate from the whole”
Cue Kariũki’s upcoming projects; an album about birds accompanied by a book sharing her research and writing process, and another album about trees sung entirely in Gĩkũyũ. These records mark an evolution in Kariũki’s music. “The albums are an amalgamation of all of these different parts of me that were hinted at in the first two records. Now, I’m going all in.”
At The Mist, Kariũki does just that as she previews snippets from the tree album. One particular jam has her sing a deep, guttural refrain, inspired by a Kikuyu form of throat-singing, which earns rapturous applause. “I was very much in myself in the best way possible during that performance, and that is not always how I feel when I perform, so really it was a gift to have experienced the pure joy of being myself in front of people who know me the most, and for that to be embraced and celebrated by them.”
Visit NYOKABI KARIUKI
Words WANJERI GAKURU
Creative direction and styling JAMIE BRYAN KIMANI
Photography KIBE NDUNI
Videography DR. WILSON ONGONG’A
Make-up SALLY SHADEYA
Photography assistance KIMANI
Fashion SEVARIA
