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.
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.
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