Kenyan singer-songwriter and guitarist Nviiri the Storyteller is this week’s cover star, and joins Cuppy via FaceTime on Apple Music 1 to talk about his latest track, “Kitenge,” the title track from his latest EP. He also discusses his beginnings as a videographer, and how that career path led him to being signed by Sauti Sol.
Nviiri The Storyteller on his early beginnings with Sauti Sol
“As the storyteller, I started off as a videographer, as much as you hear me being a musician and a guitarist, yeah. And that’s how I ended up meeting up with Sauti Sol, did a couple of video projects for them. And yeah, it’s been a journey. The end for that was always meeting a musician. And the transition was more smooth because now I had now big brothers who were there to hold our hands during the whole session. And also introduced me to the live performance.”
Nviiri The Storyteller on the changing landscape of African music consumption
Cuppy: “What’s the biggest impact and biggest experience that has satisfied you?”
Nviiri The Storyteller: “The fact that now in our country, people are really streaming our music. That used to be a really huge challenge. You’d release music, no matter how good it is. But platforms like iTunes, that used to be a challenge. I’m really enjoying that fact that now we can share it even now to the whole universe, other than just me being a Kenyan artist, the music can get to be shared in the entire universe.”
Nviiri The Storyteller on the narrative behind his debut EP ‘Kitenge’
“This [EP] specifically, it was very strategic because when I started I wanted my image as the storyteller to be known much better, hence this specific selection of the songs. If you go through them, it’s basically, I’m talking about the whole cycle of a relationship. What everyone goes through in a relationship, there’s lust, there’s love, there’s conflict, there’s breakup, there’s party. I wanted to touch on all those things in just one EP. Of course, I could go on and on with the content, but for this specific EP, it was very compact and expressive.”
Tune in to Africa Now Radio With Cuppy This Sunday, March 14th at 1p Lagos/London / 2p Johannesburg/Paris / 5a LA / 8a NYC
Only on Apple Music 1
