ZOWIE KENGOCHA THE LAST KENYAN ARTISTE TO BE FEATURED ON COLORS STUDIO

The 21 year-old New Jersey-born, Nairobi-raised singer songwriter Zowie Kengocha is the last of the six Kenyan R&B artists to perform one of her singles on the Colors’ stage.

For her performance, Zowie, who dropped her single, Project, on the platform late on Monday joins the other alumni including Xenia Manasseh, Bien, Karun, Maya Amolo and Lisa Oduor-Noah. She was also part of the writing camp for burgeoning and established songwriters, artists, and producers hosted by Spotify and ColorsxStudios in early October. 

Speaking about her song, she said: “My song, Project, is basically about wanting your person around you. Or like, just being like: Come over. I want us to have this dream romantic relationship. Like let’s just do this. I want this to be like some cliché thing. Like oh you know I want you around, you know I want that fantasy.”

Zowie, who won an American Idols Golden Ticket after she auditioned in front of Katy Perry, Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie, experiments with R&B, indie-pop, and dance music, and says that before American Idol she didn’t know what she wanted to do music-wise.

“I just loved performing covers on YouTube, that whole process and the fact that they said yes, it was kind of like a turning point for me where I was like, okay, this is what I really want to do. And I took their notes and everything and I’ve been implementing them all my life since.”

On her future ambitions: “I probably would like more people to relate to what I’m writing, or inspire more people with my writing.”