Nviiri Sande
Kenyan singer-songwriter and guitarist Nviiri Sande, better known as Nviiri the Storyteller, has carved a singular lane in East Africa’s soundscape by mixing soul-leaning vocals with the confessional candour of a Nairobi street poet. A former videographer for Sauti Sol, he stepped from behind the lens in 2017 when bandmate Bien-Aimé Baraza overheard him noodling on a guitar, drafted him to co-write the Patoranking collaboration “Melanin,” and inadvertently launched a new star. Nviiri’s solo debut “Pombe Sigara” (2019) shot to the top of regional charts, followed by crowd-pleasers “Overdose,” “Kitenge,” and the genre-bending EP Kitenge, all under Sol Generation Records. His raspy timbre, intricate Swahili lyricism, and live-looped guitar riffs have since carried him onto festival stages from Kilifi to Kigali and racked up millions of streams, earning him a reputation as the storyteller of Nairobi’s millennial love life.
In 2024 he closed his chapter with Sol Generation, thanking the collective for “schooling me in harmony and hustle” and signalling a more experimental phase that folds amapiano grooves and acoustic folk into his Afropop core. A debut album and Africa-wide tour are slated for 2025, with Nviiri pledging to spotlight up-and-coming Kenyan instrumentalists along the way, proof that his next story is as much about nurturing new voices as amplifying his own.