Lit photos from Coke Studio’s exclusive viewing party at popular club

On Sunday (10th September) Coke Studio Africa hosted an exclusive viewing party at Kiza Lounge, Nairobi, in celebration of the premiere of highly anticipated 2017 edition of the Kenyan produced Pan-African music show, this year dubbed Coke Studio Africa – 2017.

Coke Studio divas: Dela and The Band BeCa joined a host of guests including Coca Cola Executives, Coke Studio Africa band and production crew, celebrities, influencers and Kenya’s top media at the premiere event.

Now in its fifth year in Kenya, Coke Studio Africa continues to display the best of Kenyan music and talent as well as from their African counterparts. The Kenyan artists set to feature on the show this year include “Yego” hitmaker Khaligraph Jones, Kenya’s comeback king of the “Mungu Pekee” and “Malaika” hits: Nyashinski, award-winning music group Sauti Sol, the sassy “Nikimuona” singer Avril and the fast rising girl duo – The Band BeCa.

Coke Studio aims to inspire and introduce Africa’s music talents to a new and wider audience through interaction, collaboration and cooperation amongst musical artists while also building a strong brand connection with Africa’s young and growing population. Coke Studio Africa has given Kenyan artists a platform to meet other artists and top music producers from Africa to share ideas and collaborate. It breaks the wall of both geographical and genre differences by enabling collaborations across the continent and beyond.

Several key collaborations between Kenyan artists and other African acts have been born through Coke Studio meet-ups. Since their inception on the show, Africa’s Best Group from Kenya Sauti Sol have gone on to orchestrate collaborations with artists they have met on the show. These include “Africa” with Nigerian songbird Yemi Alade, “Unconditionally Bae” with Tanzania’s Alikiba and “Oya Come Make We Go” with Nigerian music icon: 2Baba, among others. Bahati, the “Barua” hitmaker was on Coke Studio season 4 last year to collaborate with Lydia Jazmine and Kiss Daniel, after which he followed up on his time on the show and did a collabo with Uganda’s beloved “Sitya Loss” singer and BET award-winner Eddy Kenzo in the song “Barua Kwa Mama”. Other major collabos off Coke Studio include Nyashinski and Yemi Alade (who were paired on the show last year) in Yemi’s new Swahili song “Nakupenda”. King Kaka and Hip Hop Pantsula from South Africa also produced “Tulia Tu”. Self-made top Kenyan rapper, Khaligraph Jones has also collaborated with M.I Abaga from Nigeria in “Black Bill Gates” from his acclaimed mixtape.

Coke Studio Africa – 2017 also promises to deliver and spark more music collaborations beyond the show. In fact, some have already been recorded while others are still in the pipeline.

“Coke Studio Africa provides a platform for our Kenyan artists to express their views to life and spread their wings across borders. Music has a way of conveying messages and uniting people and as Coca-Cola, we are happy to connect with our consumers through music,” said Lucy Odour, Marketing Manager – Kenya.

Dubbed Coke Studio Africa – 2017, this year’s show comprises 11 one-hour episodes. The first 8 episodes will be brand new episodes with episode 9 being the season’s highlights. Episode 10 already dubbed the ‘Global Fusion Edition’ will feature the show’s international guest star: Jason Derulo alongside Kenya’s Dela. The season finale will be a special Christmas episode.

Each one of the show’s episodes will have 5 segments. The second segment will be a Remix/Fusion, a section that will cleverly bring back childhood memories fondly known to Kenyans as TBT. Here artists will select ‘throwback’ music and perform their own rendition of it. The other segments will include Covers, where paired artists do each other’s songs, the Cultural Exchange, the Big Break platform and then performances of original tracks will bring the episodes to a close.