Singers Ila Nia and Kahuti have teamed up on Choosing You, the first release from the inaugural Spotify and ONErpm Fresh Finds Nairobi Sessions, bringing together two emerging voices in a four-language Afro-R&B song.

The collaboration follows a two-day music camp held in Nairobi, where artistes from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania worked with producers, songwriters and mentors to create new material.

The sessions marked the first time the Fresh Finds programme, which has previously featured emerging independent artistes through Spotify’s discovery platform, was brought to East Africa in this format.

Choosing You centres on the idea of repeatedly choosing the same person, with Ila Nia and Kahuti moving between English, Swahili, Luo and Kikuyu as they trade perspectives on love and commitment.

The song began under a different title.

“It was actually called Destiny before we changed it to Choosing You,” Ila Nia says, explaining that the recording session also marked her first time meeting Kahuti in person.

The track was produced by SoFresh 254 and written with Ywaya Tajiri of Watendawili.

Its release gives listeners the first taste of music emerging from the Nairobi sessions, with more collaborations from the camp expected in the coming months.

For Ila Nia, however, the song’s meaning extends beyond romantic relationships.

“Choosing doesn’t have to be romantic,” she says. “It can be a friendship, a mother and a daughter.”

That broader interpretation gives the song a more personal dimension, particularly for an artiste whose work often moves between Afro-soul, Swahili rhythms and Afro-pop.

Her recent catalogue includes collaborations with established names such as Nameless, while her 2024 song Haya earned recognition at the East Africa Arts Entertainment Awards. She has continued to build her profile as one of the newer voices in Kenya’s Afro-R&B and Afro-fusion space.

Kahuti, meanwhile, brings a more guitar-led approach to the collaboration.

The singer-songwriter and guitarist broke through with his 2025 Boy Lover EP, whose track Feel the Love, featuring Kinoti, has surpassed 1.5 million Spotify streams.

His music combines Afrofusion and contemporary African pop, often focusing on relationships and emotional vulnerability.

The collaboration between the two artistes was one of several creative pairings that emerged from the Nairobi sessions.

Held at Snowball Studios, the camp brought together a selection of emerging musicians alongside producers, songwriters and industry mentors.

Participants included Kenyan artists such as We Are Nubia, Zaituni, Hildah Watiri, Genes1s and Hood Boyz, as well as Ugandan and Tanzanian talent.

Among the producers involved was British-Ghanaian hitmaker JAE5, whose credits include work with Burna Boy, J Hus, Dave and Rema. Producers SoFresh, Run and ODZZ also took part, while songwriters and mentors included Watendawili and Joshua Baraka.

The sessions were designed to expose emerging artistes to collaboration and to some of the less visible aspects of building music careers, including distribution, branding, audience development and the business of streaming.

That approach showcased how young artistes are increasingly able to reach international audiences without first passing through traditional label systems.

For the artistes involved, the value of such sessions therefore lies not only in the songs produced but also in the relationships formed during the process.

Choosing You is the first public outcome of the Nairobi camp and sets the tone for what could become a collection of collaborations between emerging East African artistes.

Rather than presenting the region’s new music as a single sound, the project brings together different languages, genres and songwriting approaches.

In Choosing You, that diversity is particularly clear: four languages meet around one simple idea — choosing someone, again and again.

More music created during the Fresh Finds Nairobi Sessions is expected to be released through ONErpm in the coming months, giving audiences a chance to hear how the Nairobi studio collaborations translate into finished records.