Drum and bass-centered Nura festival to awaken Kilifi

Nura, an international cross-cultural music programme and creative residency is set to take place in Kilifi county in the first week of February.

The programme, which features a drum and bass (DnB) centric showcase, will start on February 1 and end on February 8.

“Nura is a carefully designed cultural intervention that brings history, place and people into conversation, while leaving behind skills, infrastructure and opportunity that extends far beyond the programme itself,” the organisers said.

The event encourages a meeting of the minds between jungle and DnB pioneers from the UK and East African artists.

Nura is an Arabic word that means light. In an Instagram post on Nura’s page, the significance of the name is elaborated as “the movement that illuminates new voices and sheds a light on the artists and cultures that have shaped the genres so far”.

Nura was co founded by Indigo Reign an influential UK and Kenyan-based MC and vocalist and Noise, a UK based music platform that amplifies emerging talent through studio, performance and recording opportunities.

The project is powered by AlphaTheta and widely supported by UK DnB foundation artist Fabio & Grooverider, DJ Krust & Darren Jay.

To culminate the week of learning and plugging-in, is Nurafest, which will be held at Distant Relatives in Kilifi on February 7.

Some of the programme’s pillars include;: writers and DJ Camps running between February 1 and February 5; hands-on learning, headline showcase and community gathering through Nurafest and off-grid creation and storytelling.

The programme also seeks to serve artists through skill development, collaboration visibility and confidence. 

Jungle and DnB are genres that have penetrated Kenya’s underground music scene and given rise to a community that is exponentially growing.

Jungle originated nearly 30 years ago in the UK, becoming the pulse of the Black British working-class communities and shaped by soundsystem culture, reggae, dub, hip-hop, soul and rave. 

It was fast, raw and uncompromising, a new musical language that represented the realities, creativity and resistance of a generation.

Though born in Britain, jungle did not stay within its borders. 

It widened its reach into the global atmosphere, evolving into DnB and influencing club culture, youth movements and electronic music scenes all over the world.

Dedicated to the expansion and visibility of jungle and DnB, and subsequent partners of Nura, are local collectives such as Jungle Culture Kenya, Distant Relatives and Baobab Studios. 

“Touching down in Kenya shows how far jungle has traveled but also how deep the connection runs,” Fabio & Grooverider said.

Despite jungle being widely recognised as black British culture, the intrinsic, underlying connection to Africa and its ancestral roots of rhythm, the drum and Black musical expression, has hardly been highlighted in mainstream narratives.

This paints Nura as a celebration of jungle and DnB, in honouring the past, activating the present and investing in the future.

Without a doubt, the music is coming full circle, with Kilifi being the birthplace of a movement paying homage to its roots.