Percussionist Tetu Shani releases first single off his debut album

A self-taught percussionist and guitarist, he got accepted to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in 2014 with a scholarship to study Performance. Though he had been performing as a session musician in Nairobi between 2011 and 2015, he was inspired to record his own material after meeting the Grammy winning Gospel and Jazz artist Jonathan Butler privately at the 2015 Safaricom Jazz Festival in Nairobi. After some encouragement and prayer from Butler, Tetu immediately started composing and arranging his own material and his debut album Mood Music was born.


‘Round and Round’ is the first single from this album and is an ambient track that was written during a season in Tetu’s life when he felt like he was stuck in a rut in certain aspects of his career and relationships. He was inspired by the ability of movie soundtracks to elicit emotion without the use of lyrics and simply through the skillful use of instrumentation and dynamics. He decided to compose a ‘soundtrack’ to his challenging season.


Tetu Shani’s unique influences have come as a result of living outside of Kenya for many years in countries such as Zambia, Mauritania, Senegal, Canada and the United States and being exposed to musical traditions from all around the world. This has resulted in a musical sound that is unprecedented in the Kenyan music scene and is poised to become a new genre altogether. 

“This particular track sounds a little bit like Just A Band and is very ambient,” said Tetu, hinting that it is an experimental musical style that might not conform to the norm. Just A Band are known for an ecclectic musical style that relies heavily on electronics, and which has quite a following on cyberspace, especially amongst youthful ‘netizens’.