If you’ve ever been to a Safaricom Jazz Festival then you’re definitely familiar with the works of Shamsi Music. If you’ve never heard of them, then this post is for you š
With their signature tune ‘Murata’ [and my all time favorite track from their first album The Audition], Shamsi Music has made its name as an award-winning jazz & afro-jazz fusion band from Nairobi Kenya, which prides itself in creating memorable musical experiences that capture the heart, mind and soul.
Formed in 2014, the band set the core of their musical journey as the desire to create music that mirrors the sound of their heartland, Kenya, and their Motherland, Africa.
ShamsiĀ has made waves regionally and internationally with their unique Kenyan Folk Jazz sound that represents the best of Kenyan traditional rhythms and melodies reinterpreted through the modern jazz idiom.
In the past year, Shamsi Music has played in festivals in Kenya, Mali, and Uganda, and are poised to dominate the regional Afro Jazz scene, and make notable contributions to the wider international Jazz and World Music scene and they are back with a musical experience that’s set to knock your socks off and have you falling in love with jazz all over again!
The AfroSynthesis Experience is an artistic exploration of a syncretized Africa as seen through the eyes of an upwardly mobile, Afro-urban demographic. It is the renaissance of āAfrican-nessā in the artfully mature Generation X and the keen to impress Generation Y. This awakening is buoyed by the general Afrophilia happening around the world. This concert will feature collaborative performances with singer/songwriter Chris Adwar and the queen of Nyummy Music; June Gachui.
Jazz is amongst the fastest growing musical art forms in Kenya, and Shamsi Music have curated an experience that celebrates Africa through music that has an African Jazz identity. The AfroSynthesis Experience is a Jazz party that presents music around an ecosystem embodying icons of our own mixed urban culture such as Kenyan cuisine and dining, Matatu culture, Benga, Shengā, AfroHouse, AfroJazz, dreadlocks and natural hair, abstract art, Nairobi night life among others!
The event will also serve as a prelude to Shamsi Musicās sophomore album, AfroSynthesis, set for release early 2019.
