Did you miss us? We hope so.
In April, we published a digital-only version of the magazine (and a special tribute to Just a Band) to test the response of a new initiative around mobile publishing. With over 70,000 views and 2,000 shares we reached a new watermark for the company.
We also took some time off in May from our regular publishing schedule to refresh our brand (internally and visually) and to re-launch our website.
Why all the fuss?
Today, we’re witnessing a supreme paradox that is the thorny rose of Nairobi. On the one hand, Nairobi has never been more creative and promising. On the other, racial, class and tribal divides threaten to sink us; we are still plagued by small mindedness all around us: urban planning is non-existent; corruption is more rife than ever before and our environment is choking.
Our reaction to Nairobi’s striking duality comes from a purely community or even neighborhood point of view. It is at this highly localized, ‘town hall’ level that we celebrate our coolness and our diversity and solve problems that, when humanized face to face, can be solved. At the macro, ‘Nation’ level, people are clearly divided.
Our re-launch/re-start is an exercise of re-committing ourselves to this core, original purpose as a progressive voice serving the greater creative, urban community of Nairobi.
For much of this year we have been on a spiritual journey to the heart of urban journalism and have re-imagined how a platform like UP Nairobi can better serve the community it covers, both from a business and content perspective.
From the editorial point of view, we land on the question, “what does it truly mean to be a community newspaper/magazine”?
Community journalism is locally focused, professional news and cultural coverage that typically focuses on city neighborhoods— their leaders and voices, their conversations, their unique businesses, their public spaces and their art and creativity. In the coverage of larger or wider topics and issues, community journalism concentrates on the effects theses issues have on people at the ‘street level’.
For instance, what is the effect that police brutality has on small businesses in Westlands? Is club culture a viable ‘space’ in which to tackle racial discrimination? Can a local artist change how the world views Nairobi? These are the types of unique Urban Perspectives at the center of UP Nairobi’s DNA.
The community journalism model is alive and well in cities across the U.S. in the form of urban-centric “alternative newsweeklies”. In the late 60s, progressive-press pioneers, New York’s Village Voice, The Chicago Reader and The San Francisco Bay Guardian rose up against the media establishment and became a voice of a generation. They have since spurred a whole industry targeting forward thinking individuals who envision a better, more inclusive world.
We see a parallel in Nairobi, whereby those excluded from the political process (mainly the next generation) are challenging the establishment at a critical moment in history. Liberal, community-based, human-based, thinking is driving an undercurrent of positive change. Generationally, Kenya’s Millennials are stepping in and taking over, and they are more than tired of the status quo (to say the very least).
This is where UP Nairobi’s promise rings true, and a message we want to emphasize in our new rollout. More than a new look, it is about capturing a voice of a generation.
The Conscious Economy in this framework speaks to a growing sense of partnership between the producers, creators, inventors and businesses that are driving the coming of age millennial marketplace. In Nairobi, right now, people are looking for new and fresh ways to come together and work together to make our city great on a global stage. It’s a great time to be alive, a great time to live here and an even greater time to offer ourselves to the larger good found in community building.
There is a growing Nairobi ethos among the creative classes and the urban professionals that are ‘thinking global and acting local’ (For instance, supporting your local trader or vendor over a multinational brand.) This is the trend of community economic support—another iteration of the conscious economy we need to adopt in order to survive. At this level we can thrive if we support each other.
When put together in a blender UP’s main missions in life are to provide a progressive, urban voice in support of a community of creatives and small businesses that drive the New Nairobi everyone can see shining out as a beacon, calling us forward, never back.
The spirit of our new website and brand refresh is a laser-beam commitment to the key values that make up a progressive-minded, community. As UP Nairobi marks its sixth anniversary in 2016, we ask that you join our community and we will join yours. Support us and we will support you.
