Coco Em

CHAPTER 01

A Nairobi music education does not fit a genre dropdown

Picture growing up with East African sounds in the house, then discovering that a DJ set could move between Afro-house, amapiano, hip-hop, lingala and club records from several continents without apologizing for the journey. Coco Em, born Emma Nzioka in Nairobi, has built a career around that freedom. The music her mother played became part of her listening vocabulary; the city’s creative scene supplied a space to find out what she could do with it.

A 2018 Boiler Room appearance in Nairobi helped introduce her to a much wider audience. By the early 2020s, she had brought her selections to events in Europe and Africa, including Trans Musicales in France and Nuits d’Afrique in Montreal. International attention could have led to a story told entirely in tour dates. Instead, what she built in Nairobi became at least as important as where she played abroad.

The sound changes with the room, but the source of its confidence does not.

CHAPTER 02

When the clubs stopped, the studio started

The pandemic brought the working DJ’s calendar to a sudden halt in 2020. In an interview about the experience, Coco Em described watching bookings disappear and having to consider what would come next. She responded by learning production more seriously: according to her label InFiné, she challenged herself to create a new beat on Ableton every day, eventually collecting around seventy ideas.

Those experiments became Kilumi, her 2022 debut EP. Its title references Kamba song-and-dance traditions; the seven-track release mixes East African ideas with electronic rhythms that resist being filed under a single western genre heading. The label notes contributions from artists including MC Sharon, Wuod Baba, Ndunge wa Kalele, Sisian and Kasiva. Rather than disappear into a glossy international sound, the record made space for voices connected to home.

One of the strongest stories in electronic music is a musician discovering that limitations can become a new language. A closed club door did not end Coco Em’s work. It changed the tools.

CHAPTER 03

Sim Sima: a bigger idea than a DJ brand

Coco Em also founded Sim Sima, a Nairobi collective and label developed with support from the Santuri East Africa community. The point was practical: help women and other underrepresented artists develop production skills, collaborate and access the opportunities that too often exist only for people already inside the industry. Workshops and creative partnerships mattered alongside her own releases.

It is important not to reduce that work to a line in a résumé. A scene grows when people can actually learn the equipment, afford time in a studio, get useful feedback and imagine a future in music. A single touring DJ cannot fix structural barriers, but a working collective can give more people a serious starting point.

That is a meaningful way for a home-city artist to have international reach: the work continues after the headliner leaves.

CHAPTER 04

The club keeps expanding

Kilumi helped establish Coco Em as a producer without erasing the instincts of the DJ who reached audiences through unexpected selections. Interviews with Bandcamp Daily and Mixmag document her commitment to Nairobi’s scene, while InFiné’s catalog offers a direct route to the record. In a 2025 interview with Africa Is a Country, she also discussed how more safe spaces and learning opportunities were emerging for women in Kenya’s music community.

Young DJs watching her trajectory can learn two things at once. Know your own musical history, and do not be afraid to connect it with a global club language. Then ask who else gets to come along. For Coco Em, the sound of a successful career is not only applause in another country—it is the next artist in Nairobi getting heard.