Listening to Kenyan artist Nyokabi Kariũki’s musical compositions is an illuminating invitation into a world unlike your own

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Listening to Nyokabi Kariũki’s musical compositions is an illuminating invitation into a world unlike your own. Her passion for music began at a young age: she started playing piano at five-years-old, and composed her first track at nine. Ever since then, she’s been dedicated to creating music that moves people.

And she’s been doing just that: in 2022, Kariũki released her first EP ‘peace places: kenyan memories’, a project developed during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic when Kariũki was quarantined in Maryland and feeling deeply homesick. As a result, she used the ‘peace places’ as a way to connect with memories of her homeland, crafting a tranquil soundscape out of field recordings captured in her most cherished places in Kenya.

Kariũki’s 2023 follow up project, ‘Feeling Body’, is a sonic glimpse into her experience with long COVID. Here, Kariũki brings together localized sounds with instrumentals and vocal layering to produce a harrowing sonic embodiment of her lived experience. Now, the composer and sound artist is working on her new project, building a universe based around the traditions of the Kikuyu people, a Bantu ethnic group native to East Africa.

Following her A COLORS SHOW performance of ‘Nazama’, we spoke with Nyokabi Kariũki about experiencing growth through acceptance, how sonic memories can channel holistic healing, and how she is inviting her Kikuyu heritage into her creative practice.

When did you realize you wanted to pursue music professionally?

I had a real ‘a ha!’ moment when I was 14. My father and I went to see the film ‘Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away’. It was a recording of one of the circus’ performances, so it had no dialogue. While it was one of the most boring movies I’d ever seen, it was the first time I really paid attention to music in film. From then on, I knew that this was exactly what I wanted to do—to make people feel things with music.

Your first EP ‘peace places: kenyan memories’ was built around field recordings. What was the process of capturing these?

I grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, and moved to the U.S. for university. In my final semester, the pandemic happened. During that time I was inspired to create something that demonstrated how we were engaging with art in that moment, which was digitally. That’s how my electronic practice started. I began a sound journal while quarantining in Maryland with my relatives. This is what fuelled my interest in and understanding of field recordings, and what gave me the idea for ‘peace places’. I had been feeling homesick, so I started making music from home. I revisited videos from my time in Kenya, and I decided to build a concept around the locations in those videos that were my places of peace.

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The cover art for ‘peace places: kenyan memories’, was created by Naila Aroni. Can you tell us about your collaboration process?

I see music in color. While I was building this EP, I visualized specific colors for each ‘peace place’. Naila, who I’ve known since year 1 of school, came to my mind immediately as the person who should reimagine my peace places visually. She painted three pieces based on three peace places: ‘Equator song’, ‘Galu’, and ‘A Walk Through My Cũcũ’s Farm’.

The last track of ‘peace places’, ‘Naila’s Peace Place’, is named after Aroni.

Since she painted my peace places, I wanted to paint hers. I asked her to send me videos from what she considered her peace place. She sent videos from Lamu, a unique area on the coast of Kenya. In her video there’s a clip where she and her best friend talk about how surreal the place is—I made the whole song based on that audio snippet. Throughout the song, you hear their slowed-down voices weaving through the instrumentals. The song is meant to be a freeze frame of their perfect moment in this perfect place.

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“How do I talk about difficult experiences without exploiting my own pain?”

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Your debut album, ‘FEELING BODY,’ is described as a sonic glimpse into your experience with long COVID.

‘FEELING BODY’ was hard to make. I was sick for nine months, so I needed to process that time. While creating, I asked myself the question: “how do I talk about difficult experiences without exploiting my own pain?”

On ‘fire head’, a track on the album, you experiment with various vocal elements. What made you decide to contrast your own vocals with AI voices?

When I was sick I got debilitating headaches for weeks on end. They were so painful that I couldn’t talk—that’s what the song is about. In the track there’s this phrase, “they stopped asking if I was okay”. Initially I wanted to sing this, but after one take I couldn’t stop crying. I thought: ‘how can I sing this phrase over and over again, it hurts even to say it’. That’s when I implemented text to speech, to detach from reciting something that was too painful.

“I want to encourage people to be open to the complexities of sound, and to realize how it can open you up to different ways of seeing the world.”

Tell us about the piece you performed for COLORS.

I performed ‘Nazama’, the final and most hopeful track from ‘Feeling Body’. On ‘Nazama’, I sing ‘I’m getting better at facing the ocean, I sink before I pray’. The ocean is a metaphor for my experience of being ill. I have a memory of being in the ocean, and being fearful of the waves’ movements. This memory taught me how to listen to my body, to see myself for where I am, and to learn how to accept my current situation. In short, this song is about how I learned to listen to my body.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on what I hope will be my next album. It’s very big, and intimidating. I want the majority of the lyrics to be in Kikuyu. I’m currently on the journey of becoming fluent in my own language, and I’m curious to invite this into my creative practice. The album takes place in a forest, so I’m building a world in this space, and creating a mythical environment that’s informed by Kikuyu spirituality, and my people’s connection with nature.

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If you could send one message to our audience right now, what would it be?

I want to encourage people to be open to the complexities of sound, and to realize how it can open you up to different ways of seeing the world. Music in our society is not one dimensional, it has been used both as a form of resistance, and as a way to find solace. Music communicates important information to huge audiences, and shares emotions and experiences that are uncomfortable and difficult to hear. Challenging artistic works are important because of this. We need to make space for them.

Nyokabi Kariũki is a Kenyan artist whose A COLORS SHOW was released on the 10th November 2023. You can watch the full performance on our YouTube channel.

Text: Katerina Lytras
Photography: Muthukia Wachira

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