Kenya’s Nyokabi Kariuri featured on Colors X Studio.
Nyokabi Kariũki becomes the fourth Kenya artist and composer – after Xeniah Manasseh, Lisa Oduor, and Bien – to be featured on A Colors Show – a music platform by Colors X Studios in partnership with Spotify. For her A Colors Show performance, Nyokabi Kariũki presented a new, explosive live version of ‘Nazama’, the stunning closing track from ‘Feeling Body’. Blissful harmonies, a powerful bass, and the rattling of river stones swirl in the background of ‘Nazama’. Her explosive vocals pierced through the backdrop like a light radiating a healing, and meditative energy as she sang about her recovery from long COVID.
Xeniah and Lisa featured on Colors Show.
Nyokabi Kariũki was born in 1998 and she is a Kenyan composer and performer based between New York, Maryland and Nairobi. Her craft is ever-evolving, with compositions ranging from classical contemporary to choral music, film, experimental pop and explorations into sound art, electronics, and (East) African musical traditions. Her love for music runs deeper as she is not only a performer or a composer but also an instrumentalist – with 16+ years of experience – and vocalist. Nyokabi’s art seeks to bridge her diverse influences — from her love for experimentation & improvisation, to her African upbringing and Western classical training — together into a reflection of accessible, evocative, and meaningful art.
A colors show, performance by Bien.
While still in the early stages of her career, Nyokabi’s works (both collaborative and solo) have been seen at events around the globe. In July 2021, she released her first single ‘Galu’ – via UK-based label SA Recordings – and ‘Equator Song’ as a soft launch to her debut EP release in 2022 dubbed ‘Peace Places: Kenyan memories’.
Track List
Equator song
A walk through my Cucu’s farm
Galu
Home Piano
Ngurumo, or Feeding goats mangoes
Naila’s Peace Place
In March 2023, Kariũki released her debut album ‘Feeling Body’, a six-track project which chronicles the artist’s experience of illness to recovery from long COVID in 2021. The project was a 6 track album with no features.
Track list
Subira
Feeling Body
Fire head
Quite face
Folds
Nazama
While Nyokabi continues to explore music and its impact in different ways, she is ultimately driven by a constant yearning to explore sound as a tool to not only re-discover the stories of her culture, but also to highlight its significance, and contribute to the preservation of African stories.