Njerae reveals how Covid-19 transformed her music journey
By Cynthia Lodite, September 27, 2025Kenyan R&B artist Njeri Njeri, widely known as Njerae, has opened up on the challenges she encountered in her music journey while linking Covid-19 as a major setback at the time.
The Musician star made her remarks on Friday, September 27, 2025, during an interview with a local media house, where she revealed how Kenyan artist and superstar Bensoul came to his rescue.
Njerae revealed that she got stuck during Covid-19 and that she was held back from writing after being locked down in Mombasa.
“So now, when Covid-19 hit and you know you’re not hanging around people, there’s no interaction. You don’t know what stories to write. I was, like, stuck, and I was just like, “I don’t know what to write because now I have no more stories,” Njerae said.
The Kenyan singer-songwriter further revealed that at the time, Bensoul came to the rescue of the African R&B star.
“So I was talking to one of my artist friends, Ben Soul, and he advised me to try not to write about other people, just one time, and try to write about myself. And I’ve never looked back,” Njerae added.
Njerae’s rise to fame
Kenyan singer-songwriter Njerae has earned the title of Kenya’s Lover Girl with her soulful Afro-indie sound, capturing the full spectrum of love from longing to heartbreak. Now, she returns with Four Letter Word, a Valentine’s Day EP that showcases her emotionally rich songwriting. Its first single, “Beg for It”, set the tone when it dropped in January, quickly gaining traction.
“I wanted to create something that captures the full experience of love and relationships without explicitly shouting about love. It was about going back to my roots musically,” she said in a past interview.
The musician star, born in the coastal city of Mombasa, Njerae, revealed that she started singing at age three, performing in church and school music festivals. But it wasn’t until she started seeing Kenyan artists succeed in music that she realised it could be a career.
“I didn’t know there was a real path here,” she says. Attending the development programme at Sauti Academy after high school and moving to Nairobi cemented her journey.