Grammy-award winning afro-pop band, Sauti Sol, have announced their partnership with Shahara, coming on board as Creative Co-Founders.

Shahara is an online platform that enables the African creative economy to earn revenue directly from their work, through their audiences.  

Launched in August 2021 by Africa Uncensored, The Catapult Agency LLP, and Baraza Media Lab, Shahara - which derives its name from the Swahili word Mshahara (salary) - was created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected the creative economy as marketing and other events were postponed or canceled.

Determined to build a direct alliance between the content creator and their audience, Shahara offers a platform where creators can publish their work and their audiences can support them directly by paying for the content, with the content creator taking a lion share of whatever they earn. 

The first project that launched on Shahara was A Letter To My Younger Self, an audio/visual podcast that features popular content creator, Maxine Wabosha, in conversation with inspirational Kenyans about the moments that shaped them into the people they are today. 

Since then, the platform has become home to other exclusive content such as the Africa Uncensored documentaries, Pandora Papers, Crooks & Wombs, and Under Your Watch; as well as Cynthia Abdullah’s documentary, Inyumba Yu Mulogooli. 

In addition to joining Shahara as Creative Co-Founders, Sauti Sol will also share their own exclusive content on the platform, starting with Bien Aime and Aaron Rimbui’s BALDMEN Virtual Experience - an acoustic performance that offers a wonderful story of love, life, fun, and prestige which is now available on shaharavideos.com for only 100 kenya shillings. 

Future premiers to look forward to on Shahara include: more exclusive content from Sauti Sol; the sequel to NDIZI TV’s Omwanchi Trubena (Beloved Trubena) Part 2 - a Kisii movie with over 99,000 views; exclusive content from Season 2 of Maxine Wabosha’s A Letter To My Younger Self; exclusive content from Season 1 of The Joyride Podcast, as well as content from the award-winning theater performers, Too Early for Birds, Story Sosa a production by Baraza Media Lab and content from the East African production house, Fat Rain Films. 

In the next few months Shahara will also introduce a series of masterclasses and tutorials for content creators.

Plus, later in the year, the platform will launch features that will allow for writers, journalists, artists, and photographers to also publish their work on Shahara.