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Young Kenyan urbanites have historically favoured western forms of entertainment such as Hollywood films and pop music over local alternatives. However, preferences have steadily shifted in recent years and locally produced entertainment that emphasises cultural heritage and African identity has found a sizeable audience among young, upwardly mobile, urban consumers. This has opened new markets for local artists and entrepreneurs, creating fresh investment opportunities in the country’s creative economy.
The music industry in particular has been at the epicentre of this cultural shift. A crop of vernacular musicians who are able to blend traditional African storytelling with modern beats has emerged. The kind of music they produce appeals to a new generation of music lovers who are open to listening to alternative urban tunes sung in vernacular languages such as Luo.
Luo musicians seize opportunity
Coster Ojwang is a contemporary Luo musician based in Nairobi who has found fame and success singing to urban audiences in his native Luo language. He tells African Business that, ever since releasing his first track in 2021, there has been a steady increase in demand for the kind of music he produces.
This has propelled his music career to new highs and boosted his earnings as an artist. “Music has become a good business,” he admits. However, he notes that when he started releasing contemporary Luo songs at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the commercial potential of his blend of music was not immediately clear at first.
“The songs were beautiful but not catchy. Some of them were sad songs. They were touching on areas people were either scared to touch on, or that people never thought would generate money and get you paid in clubs,” he says, recounting his first-ever track, Oriore.
“I wrote and sang about my life, living in the village with my grandmother, the place of faith and tradition in the village, and moving to Nairobi, what that meant,” he says.
After releasing a few more songs and publishing his first album, Tales of the Fisherman, in June 2021, Ojwang encountered a challenge that later on proved to be an important turning point for his future in the music business – he was getting attention but very little of that was translating to revenue.
“There was considerable chatter online after the album, but zero bookings,” he says, noting that this led him to want to be “more and better known beyond his voice.”
“I remember asking myself, what if we play music but no one knows me, so no one is going to book me. So I decided to use some of my art money to put together my own gigs,” he says.
Indeed, Ojwang is a multi-talented artist who has painted for a longer period than he has recorded music. He established his art studio in Nairobi in 2015, plying his trade as a contemporary impressionist. He says he’s remained active in the art scene ever since, participating in several exhibitions in the city and abroad.
“When I started the music business, I had stabilised the art business and established myself in the Nairobi art scene. I knew how to make art, how to do exhibitions, and so on. I also kept my expenses low to save money for music,” he says, speaking to African Business from his art studio in Nairobi.
Organising his own shows, recording the performances, and posting on social media paid off handsomely. The idea, he explains, was to create a platform for his fans to experience him in live performance, and not just hear his voice.
“I was able to put together a band, including a guitarist, drummer, keyboard players. Now we’re ten members, but when we started we were just four,” he says.
“More people came to know us better and our approach really set us apart… there were no gigs playing those kinds of songs, playing them well with a big band, and recording and posting on social media. The bookings soon followed,” he says.
Commercial breakthrough
With revenues from bookings growing, Ojwang stumbled on yet another commercial breakthrough in his music career, when he decided to start collaborating with other musicians in his genre. They performed together at festivals and also collaborated on several tracks that made it into his second album.
“My first album only gave me 45 minutes of performance. You know people won’t like all the tracks in your album, so I couldn’t play all of them on live gigs. I figured I needed more songs, so I did my second album in 2022 called Fweny, which translates to revelations. It had 17 songs,”
This album featured collaborations with other prolific contemporary artists such as Okello Max, Watendawili, Serro and Swiga. This, he argues, helped expand his reach as these were already big names.
“They were my peers but had been in the music scene for a longer period. Working with them opened new markets. We were playing in different venues and meeting new people, and I started feeling the power of what I am doing,” he says.
This opened a host of game-changing opportunities in live events across the country, including some that Ojwang helped put together called The Fish Market, where he and other contemporary Luo musicians entertained crowds with their different songs.
“The reason to launch The Fish Market was to give contemporary Luo musicians the space to showcase their art and talent.”
Building on this momentum, he decided to take the risk and do his first large solo event. “I did a Fisherman Experience in May last year, where it was just me. It rained heavily but the show was still a success. After the show I released my album Imposter Syndrome No More in October 2024, which had 17 tracks. Things have not been the same since… It opened doors.”
Indeed, in February Ojwang was signed onto Sol Generation, the high-flying record label linked to members of the defunct but wildly successful afrobeats band Sauti Sol. “Welcome Coster Ojwang. We are stoked to announce that Coster Ojwang has inked a three-year publishing admin deal with us. Looking forward to the journey ahead,” stated Sol Generation.
Preserving local traditions
For Chief Nyamweya, co-founder and creative director of Pungulu Pa Productions, an animation studio in Nairobi, the surge in demand for local content among Kenyan audiences is “driven by the need to preserve local traditions in a globalised world.”
He tells African Business that as more young Kenyans interact with the rest of the world – either through travel or virtually online – demand for art forms that help them assert their African heritage will increase, especially among the urbanised middle class.
“These are the people who are the most impacted by globalisation. These are the people who are travelling the most and interacting with people from other continents. They are the ones who are more likely to want to assert their identity.
“So as they become global citizens, they recognise the importance of heritage, of having a unique identity,” he elaborates.
He says that these attitudes on the importance of local content in media and entertainment are being passed onto future generations, with more young parents opting for children’s programming that teaches their kids about local culture.
This has created an opportunity for Nyamweya’s studio, which specialises in creating animations for children aged 3-8 years old.
Content for future generations
“At Pungulu Pa, I direct Uli & Tata’s African Nursery Rhymes, an animated series that follows the extraordinary adventures of two siblings in search of Africa’s children’s songs,” Nyamweya says.
“The series was created during Covid lockdowns by three Kenyan parents – myself, my wife and a close friend – in response to the glaring lack of authentic African children’s content.
“When Uli and her brother Tata stumble upon magical traditional instruments, they inadvertently summon Tuki, a wise blue giant turaco bird from Kakamega rainforest. Together, they journey across the continent in search of Africa’s disappearing nursery rhymes,” he explains.
“Through song and story, they learn important life lessons while celebrating Africa’s rich cultural and natural heritage,” he adds, noting that during production he travelled across multiple villages in Kenya and Tanzania to collect the stories.
When asked what inspired him to focus on children’s animations, Nyamweya argues that producing content for children has been a more worthwhile commercial endeavour than doing the same for adults.
“What we learnt when we started doing children’s animations is how fickle adult audiences are. By the time people become teenagers, they are very picky. They’ll watch your content for 10 seconds, and if it doesn’t grip them, they are on to the next thing,” he explains.
“Whereas children are much more loyal, like if you do something that captivates children, you have a fan for life. So our focus has been three to eight years old… that’s really done wonders in terms of engagement and growing the audience.”
Nyamweya believes that the creative economy in Kenya has the potential to create far more jobs than it currently offers – but that years of public underinvestment are holding it back. Lack of money and jobs means that many talented creatives are trying their hand at something different, he says, challenging authorities to borrow a leaf from countries like France which invests heavily in the arts both at home and abroad.
“Talent goes where the incentives are. The reason why people aren’t becoming animators is because the incentives aren’t there. Right now, too much of it depends on just the sheer brute force of the individual,” he says.
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