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Chronicling the Kenyan Music Industry – An Interview with John Muchiri by Lorna Likiza // english_deutsch
Kenya has massive talent. The only problem is that many musicians haven’t yet mastered how to market themselves internationally. From the people I have interacted with in the UK in the music scene, Kenya is considered a very prime market for entertainment but we need to get out of our comfort zone. We need to think beyond our comfort zone which is the East African Market. We need to be more strategic. We also need to invest heavily in our music. So to be precise, the three things we need to master are Management, Marketing and Strategy which our Nigerian counterparts have long mastered.
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African Author Spotlight – An Interview with Dennis Mugaa_ Engl/Ger
Dennis Mugaa is a Kenyan Writer whose debut collection of Short Stories, Half Portraits Underwater, is set for release in 2024 by Nigerian Publisher, Masobe Books. No stranger to the literary scene, he won the 2022 Black Warrior Review Fiction Contest, was shortlisted for Isele Magazine’s inaugural Short Story Prize and was longlisted for the 2021 Afritondo Short Story Prize. Additionally, his works have been featured in various literary journals across Africa and overseas.
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The House of Rust and Swahili Culture – Interview with Mombasa writer Khadija Abdalla Bajaber -engl
Khadija Bajaber had written a successful book last year, The House of Rust, which was recognized very well in african countries and abroad (see also the review of Lorna Likiza on this site). Raised and living in Mombasa, Kenya, she is strongly influenced with Swahili Culture and its long and rich history. This year, Khadija Bajaber is an invited guest at the African Book Festival in Berlin. I took the chance to talk to her before she left for Europe. And, yes, the answers are longer than in usual interviews. But its published here in full lenght version. For the first issue, only in english this time.
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Is there Anybody Out There? Nairobi Space Station – Kairos Futura Artist Project Starts this March_deutsch/englisch
They look like the futuristic Space Guerilla. From 18 March, they will make Kanairo unsafe. That is the Sheng name for Kenya's capital Nairobi. The venerable MacMillian Library in the centre will kick off the launch. It becomes a space station. They have camels with them with Massai blankets. The olive overalls are well tailored, the steel masks make them look martial. With this project, the Kairos Futura artists' group puts a big exclamation mark on Nairobi's Design Week. But it is not only about spectacle. The artists' collective, consisting of artists, designers, scientists and environmentalists, wants more: visions and proposals for an environmentally friendly Nairobi. It is about reclaiming urban space, about the "rewilding" of inner-city areas. They…
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Bringing Art to the Masses – Interview with Patrick Mukabi – engl_ger
Patrick Mukabi is a Kenyan Visual Artist, Graphic Designer, Dad and Mentor, best known for his appreciation of the African female form. In this interview with Lorna Likiza and Hans Hofele, he talks about his journey as an artist and why the middle class in Kenya are yet to fully appreciate art.
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Centering Black Literature: An Interview with James Murua- engl/ger
In the run-up to the African Book Festival in Berlin, of which cultureafrica.net is a media partner, there will be a series of interviews with participants and experts in the African literary scene. This time it is James Murua. He is one of the most influential bloggers in the African literary scene. He has attended many literary festivals, both nationally and internationally. His website jamesmurua.com is one of the most successful on the continent. James Murua lives with his wife, the writer Zukiswa Wanner, in Nairobi, Kenya. The interview was conducted during the Heroe Book Fair literary festival in Mombasa.
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The Sound and the City: Nairobi in a multimedia exhibition by art project Norient engl/ger
It’s colourful, it’s wacky, virtuosic and mega interesting, its the sound and the city: Norient’s art project has attempted to explore an entire city under the aspect of sound. The result is an exciting audiovisual inventory of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. They call it an audio-visual gallery. A gallery for contemporary music, quality journalism, research, project work and also events. FOR GERMAN VERSION PLEASE SCROLL DOWN by hans hofele Nairobi is the first city and the start of a planned series of audio-visual explorations of global cities. In times when travelling to cities is either financially impossible or poorly possible due to restrictions from visas to Corona, Norient seeks to make these journeys possible virtually. For visitors from the West,…
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A phantastic Mombasa journey: The House of Rust – Book Review by Lorna Likiza – engl/ger
A phantastic Mombasa journey: "The House of Rust is an enchanting novel about a Hadhrami girl in Mombasa. When her fisherman father goes missing, Aisha takes to the sea on a magical boat made of a skeleton to rescue him. She is guided by a talking scholar’s cat (and soon crows, goats, and other animals all have their say, too). On this journey Aisha meets three terrifying sea monsters." (Graywolf Press) Khadija Abdallah Bajaber's, THE HOUSE OF RUST, is proof of that the fantasy genre has a future in Kenyan literature.
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Softie – Kenya’s Political Documentary Sensation – Interview with Sam Soko and Njeri Mwangi
Boniface “Softie” Mwangi has long fought injustices in his country as a political activist. Now he’s running for office in a regional Kenyan election. Softie follows Boniface from the moment Boniface decides to run, telling his wife, Njeri, in passing with a hesitant laugh, he responds to each challenge with optimism. But running a clean campaign against corrupt opponents becomes increasingly harder to combat with idealism alone. And Boniface soon finds that challenging strong political dynasties is putting his family at risk. Should country really come before family, as he’s always believed?
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Invisible Inventories – Nairobi – Cologne – now Frankfurt – Interview mit/with Leonie Neumann ger/engl
We do not avoid conflicts, but certainly this project has become very big and has connected many houses. It is also an opportunity for our house to learn from it for future projects, to grow from it and also to learn through dialogue and discussion with those affected, the representatives of the communities.
