Another country has announced its participant for the International Music Contest “Intervision”: Kenya will be represented by the well-known singer, TV host, and actress Sanaipei Tande.
Sanaipei was born in March 1985 and initially did not plan to dedicate her life to music. After school, she enrolled in the Kenya Medical Training College to become a doctor. However, in 2004, her family persuaded her to take part in the Coca-Cola Popstars talent search. This step changed Sanaipei’s life forever. She became one of the three top finalists who then formed the musical trio Sema and almost immediately released the 17-track album Mwewe, many songs from which became real hits.
Unfortunately, the group soon broke up, but the star of Sanaipei Tande had already begun to shine in the musical firmament. Since the 2010s, she has worked with a huge number of prominent Kenyan artists. For example, her collaboration with Aiyana (2020) was very fruitful, and before that with R&B artist Otile Brown on creating hits like Chaguo La Moyo (2018), the music video for which became one of the most viewed in Kenya, garnering over 30 million views.
In 2017, commissioned by the Ministry of Sports and Culture, Sanaipei Tande wrote the songs TWENDE KASA and VICTORIOUS for the World Under-18 Athletics Championships (WU18), which featured various musicians. That same year, Sanaipei responded to a proposal from the Ministry of Irrigation and wrote the song MJASIRI for the residents of Nairobi as part of the Jubilee Youth presidential campaign. The singer carried out this project together with Kenyan rapper Naiboi.
In 2019, Sanaipei served as the head Kenyan jury member for the Amazing Voices music contest, broadcast on the popular African media platform Africa Magic.
In 2021, Sanaipei released her debut EP album titled NABO, which means “Number 1” in the Maa language. The music video for the track Flavour became the most popular of the artist’s works, garnering 9 million online views.