It\u2019s late one Saturday night and the Mall, one of the oldest shopping centres in Nairobi\u2019s Westlands district, is deceptively quiet, a stark contrast to the busy streets outside. But walk down one flight of stairs and the dimly lit basement is teeming with life as bodies pulsate to the heady rhythms of jungle, dancehall, UK funky, and South African gqom and amapiano. The Mist \u2013 the kind of underground club where you can catch anything from grime to glitch, and the resident DJ takes to spinning Pharoah Sanders at 4am \u2013 is hosting nu.wav, an event organised by recent graduates of Santuri Electronic Music Academy\u2019s DJing 101 programme. Course mates and clubbers surround the decks, dancing and cheering loudly as each person finishes their set.<\/p>\n
Santuri Electronic Music Academy (SEMA) is the educational arm of Santuri East Africa, a Nairobi-based platform that supports east African music producers, DJs, sound engineers and other music industry professionals. SEMA runs courses in both music production and DJing, and the focus is placed on creating community and culture as much as it is on technical skills. Students learn how to ethically interact with traditional music, and are encouraged to engage with topics around identity, class and gender. Out of the 150 students that have been trained by SEMA over the past two years, 55% have been non-male, with the balance tipping even further in recent courses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really cool to have a female-heavy cohort\u201d says Marion Muthiani, a recent SEMA graduate who DJs under the name nowisgood. \u201cSanturi is a welcoming space so we feel comfortable in the classes and events.\u201d<\/p>\n
Self-described \u201cethnomusicology nerd\u201d Nabalayo joined SEMA\u2019s advanced music production course as an accomplished artist, having already self-produced her 2020 debut Changanya, a sublime exploration of Kenyan folklore and Nairobian life. \u201cBefore I would call myself a singer masquerading as a producer, but after [the SEMA course] I felt validated and confident in what I\u2019m doing,\u201d says Nabalayo. The course gave her the confidence to mix and master her new album IPO, as well as singing, playing, and producing every part of it.<\/p>\n
Most of Santuri\u2019s current activities are based on findings from their 2020 report conducted in partnership with Ableton. The research, carried out by Kenyan artists and Santuri associates KMRU and Coco Em, found that lack of equipment and community spaces were major barriers in the industry, and that female and queer artists felt unwelcome in most music spaces. Armed with this knowledge and some funding from the Goethe Institut, Santuri launched the Electronic Music Academy in 2021 with a specific focus on these areas.<\/p>\n
Santuri had been active on and off since 2013, when its co-founders, Kenyan DJ and cultural activist Gregg Tendwa and British DJ David Tinning, began organising one-off events at festivals around east Africa. These sessions birthed a couple of great records, like Esa and Auntie Flo\u2019s The Highlife World Series and On the Corner\u2019s Nyako, but the team quickly understood the need for longer-term, more locally impactful projects. Their first step was to support Femme Electronic, a platform started in Kampala by DJ Rachael to train female DJs and producers.<\/p>\n
Kampire, a core member of Kampala\u2019s Nyege Nyege collective, who has played clubs and festivals across the world with her eclectic and bass-heavy sets, remembers attending some of those early workshops: \u201cIt was back in 2016 so I had really just been DJing for a few months at that point,\u201d she recalls. \u201cIt was valuable for me to get into the technicalities and history of DJing, but it also introduced me to the idea that so much of DJing and electronic music is about organising around community, and that it is important for women and queer people to organise, because men are mentoring each other and booking each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spearheaded by Justin Doucet (AKA DJ Huilly Huile) and supported by Santuri, Femme Electronic launched in Nairobi in 2017, and several people who were involved back then are involved with Santuri to this day. Among them is Coco Em, who is a SEMA tutor and who is quickly becoming a fixture on dancefloors across the world (including gigs at Boiler Room and London\u2019s Fabric) with her sets that move between Afro house, kuduro, and Kenyan gengetone.<\/p>\n
Renowned sound artist KMRU was also accepted into the Femme Electronic programme as he was too young to sign up to other DJ schools. \u201cThis was the time in my music journey that I wanted to start playing live, I was really trying to find a performative side to my music\u201d he says. KMRU is quick to acknowledge Santuri\u2019s contribution to the Kenyan music scene over the past few years: \u201cNew artists are getting access to equipment and software, and they\u2019re sharing knowledge about production and music-making. There is so much potential, I\u2019m curious to see how it\u2019s going to evolve.\u201d<\/p>\n
As well as taking part in the Femme Electronic DJing courses, KMRU offered to informally teach production at a time when Santuri was running workshops with \u201cno funding and none of our own equipment\u201d, says Doucet, who now works full-time with Santuri. To ensure the workshops were accessible to everyone, the team would offer lunch and transport. \u201cWe found that as soon as we catered for that and had a good internet connection it was really easy, people learned a lot and made their first beats on Ableton. That was the first iteration of SEMA.\u201d<\/p>\n
For KMRU the experience planted the seed for the Nairobi Ableton User Group, an organisation he co-founded that offers Nairobi-based musicians who use Ableton a space to meet, learn, and support each other that has since scaled back its activities. \u201cKMRU is hailed as a bit of a hero and has helped foster a culture of experimentation,\u201d says Tinning. \u201cHis commitment to the community has been huge.\u201d Even since moving to Berlin, KMRU has continued to share his processes in SEMA masterclasses and panels on experimental music, as has Kenyan composer Nyokabi Kari\u0169ki.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Santuri first started doing workshops nine years ago, we relied on a lot of artists and educators coming from Europe, the UK or South Africa,\u201d says Tinning. \u201cNow we are really happy that all our teaching team are east African, and only a few guest tutors or specialists are involved from outside the region. We\u2019ve focused on building the skills of our tutors so the knowledge \u2013 and how to share it \u2013 resides in east Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n
Santuri connects students to the local scene through a series of events, and to the rest of the world through their Santuri Signal show on Accra-based Oroko Radio. The events are key, says Doucet. \u201cInstead of the students graduating and waiting to be picked up by some festival or club night, they often get their first performance opportunities directly from us, surrounded by their friends and peers.\u201d By fostering an inclusive music scene, Santuri is slowly dismantling barriers in the industry: \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a community where there are so many female sound engineers, producers, and DJs. We are front and centre,\u201d says DJ Shock, who is both a DJ tutor and a production student in SEMA.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlatforms like Santuri are very important, particularly in east Africa,\u201d agrees Kampire. \u201cOne thing I\u2019ve learned about DJing is that it\u2019s never just about you as an artist, it\u2019s also about the scene you come from and the sounds you represent. Literally, I\u2019m not winning unless all of us are winning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Santuri Electronic Music Academy supports east African music producers, DJs and sound engineers trying to break into the industry, particularly encouraging female and queer artists<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12963,"featured_media":30335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,31],"tags":[7,14,32],"class_list":{"0":"post-30338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"category-music","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"yoast_head":"\n