This July 16th Tetu Shani will be gracing the stage at UP LIVE 5. Last year we featured this dynamic talent and went in-depth into the life and times of this Kenyan creative, so before you get the chance to see him on stage read up on Tetu Shani….oh, and don’t forget to buy your tickets for UP LIVE 5.
Byline: Vincent Libosso
“I see myself as a songwriter/singer heavily influenced by American folk music, with other influences such as Reggae, Soul Music and Alternative Rock. So, I call my music: Mood Rock Music”- Tetu Shani.
Everything about Kilimani is new to me - its seismic chart of gated estates, private villas and apartments, protracted evening sunsets and tarmacked streets. Hailing from Umoja, an area totally different from Kilimani, my journey proved that Nairobi is a city full of extremes and contradictions and every day we figure out something new.
I was there to interview Tetu Shani - a self- taught guitarist and percussionist.
In the small but growing alternative music scene, the challenge remains finding acceptance among Nairobians and locking into a sound that is new and different.
The city’s diverse offerings, just like it’s capitalism, takes on elements of the imported. Nigerian music still dominates the radio airwaves and the clubbing nights of Nairobi.
We took our places in his lush garden as the Nairobi sun lazily set behind us, providing the perfect backdrop for an intimate conversation with Shani. Rocking a maroon t-shirt, denim jeans, socked feet and plastic sandals, the tall and athletic Tetu Shani is a man whose eyes light behind his spectacles as he laughs and speaks about music. His dark skin speaks of his African identity.
I began our chat by asking Tetu about the mysterious stand out line on his website: “For every sliver on the spectrum of human emotion, there is a song.”
“Mood music. That is my vision. That is my passion.”
A passion that was born out of frustrations for a struggling creative back then.
“I was frustrated realizing that a certain group of people were portraying a Kenya that wanted to only listen to a particular sound.”
Kenya for him stood for a person with emotions. A matter that he took deeply, “ By virtue of being human with emotions, what I know about music is that the most powerful kind is that which manages to touch a particular part of the soul and emotions.”
Born November 6, 1985 in Nairobi, Kenya, Tetu’s musical gift became evident at a very early age. While he was still a toddler his mother gave him a shaker to play with and he unexpectedly started shaking it rhythmically much to his family’s amusement.
How he manages to invite you on an intimate musical journey of the soul with his guitar, remains a mystery even to us.
“My journey with the guitar is kind of unique. Once again, my mum (shout out to her) put me on a guitar at a very tender age. But back then, my primary focus was on sports and being an athlete. So, I ended up forgetting about the guitar.”
He would later pick the guitar again in his freshman year of college and fall back in love with it, only to ditch his lover for almost four years. 2015 would see him get inspired to pick up the guitar again.
“The time was right. Call me a late bloomer but coming from writing just one song to writing 22 songs this year, the time was now.”
That inspiration to write his own material happened after meeting the Grammy winning Gospel and Jazz artist, Jonathan Butler, privately backstage at the 2015 Safaricom Jazz Festival. After some encouragement and prayer from Butler, Tetu immediately started composing and arranging his own material and his debut album Mood Music was born.
“I felt the transfer of creative energy - I know it may sound a bit cliché - from his prayer. Suddenly, all these little pieces and elements that were disconnected and disjointed in my head, started coming together,” Tetu goes into deep thought and for a moment it seems he is gone. It takes the noisy kids playing at the garden to bring him back to the interview.
“What I have done with my music is to take away the layers of foundation, mascara, make-up and eye-liner and then present the song to you in its naked form.”
With its nakedness just like Adam and Eve Naked in the Garden of Eden, comes a sprinkle of sensitivity, ingrained with deep vocals, yet infused with sincerity.
He tells us about working with the gifted producer, Michael ‘MG’ Ghando, the same guy behind success hits by Cece Sagini, H_Art The Band and Gilad Millo. Tetu describes him as collaborative, open-minded and a guy whose attention to detail is remarkable.
Round And Round, his first single is a soundtrack to his challenging season in the Nairobi grind. The track saw him get feted in this year’s Global Music Awards. An Ode To Pa is yet another one of those tracks sons dedicate to their fathers.
Using instruments to skillfully elicit emotions, his music has life.
Calling him a ‘certain genre’ artist would reduce him to something he probably is not. His musical influences cut across from having lived in different places outside Kenya—drawing from the Mbalax rhythms that stimulate Dakar’s nightlife, the fabled Zambian Kalindula and Zed Beats, the heavily American influenced sounds of Canada and the Moorish mystics of Mauritania, without forgetting the grunge ballads of California.
“It is just funny how by living in all these places, you soak in all these musical elements subconsciously and just like life, you find yourself applying them subconsciously.”
This has resulted in a musical sound that is unprecedented in Kenya’s diverse music scene and is poised to become a new genre altogether.
“I see myself as a songwriter/singer heavily influenced by American folk music, with other influences such as Reggae, Soul Music and Alternative Rock. So, I call my music: Mood Rock Music.”
Despite a prestigious scholarship to study at Berklee College of Music, Tetu Shani, backed by his supportive wife, has opted to remain in Nairobi and explore his music, under the flagship of the creative renaissance and musical revolution rocking this city.
As we head back to his office, Tetu Shani warms our evening with some coffee and guitar ballads before his debut performance at Utam Festival. We jam to some of his exclusive songs yet to be released. That night we caught a glimpse of what might be the next big thing in Nairobi.
This city’s musical cocktail has it all. And at last we realized—Mood Rock Music has been home all along.
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