Kenya’s Sauti Sol continues collabo culture with Nigerian stars

“We went back to the hotel and weren’t talking to one another,” band member Bien-Aimé Baraza said in an interview. But like good schoolboys – three of Sauti Sol's four members met in Upper Hill High School, Kenya – they have learnt to make hay while the sun shines.

The group, which has previously been to Lagos on five occasions, extended their stay in the city by a week and in that period worked on collaborations with Nigerian artists. So far Sauti Sol has made collaborations across the continent their thing. They’ve worked with Tanzania’s Ali Kiba, South Africa’s Mi Casa and Nigeria’s 2Baba and Yemi Alade.

“Yemi is a machine,” they said of the self-declared Mama Africa. “She's a hardworking woman. And she's an example to so many girls out there who just wanna make it and will stop at nothing to hit the jackpot. She’s amazing.”

During their extended stay in Lagos, they added collabos with Tiwa Savage, Adekunle Gold, Simi, Davido, Phyno and Burna Boy to their list. “These are guys who we are fans of and who we have been promising each other so many times. We’ve been meeting in different parts of the world and saying, ‘Oh we need to do something.’ This has been three or four years in the making.”

More and more African artists are now making music together. One reason is the chance to exploit what might be mutually exclusive fan bases: collaborations help an artist to acquire fans beyond their native countries and allow for lesser-known artists to piggyback on the larger fan bases of superstars like Davido, Wizkid and others.

However, the dynamics of this are changing from popular artists doing a feature as a favour to a more symbiotic relationship where the stars themselves gain a bigger following in different parts of the continent. Sauti Sol said Yemi Alade had connected with fans in Kenya because of the Swahili version of her song ‘Na Gode', which is written by Baraza. Alade has indeed become the poster girl for the inherent value in working with artists across the continent.

Asked about who would take credit for the new collaborative compositions, the group was noncommittal, saying it is irrelevant.

“It’s a creative process that is not determined by ‘okay this is my song’,” Baraza said. “We just vibe. Whatever comes first; if it’s our track or their track, it’s for the good of the music. It doesn’t matter whose YouTube [channel] the song is on, as long as the people get the song.”