When Serro steps onto a stage, she wants every detail to tell a story. The lights, the silence, the conversations and the music all have a purpose.
It is why the Afro-soul singer has chosen to create her own productions, giving herself complete control over how her songs come to life.
The bubbly singer and songwriter, who has released a cinematic music video to Ilomba, a song she collaborated on with Coster Ojwang, is building her own spaces through self-produced live shows, Serro Live and Uani.
Her upcoming edition of Serro Live on July 25 at the Kenya National Theatre will revolve around her acclaimed album Dust to Dawn, which is one of the most streamed Kenyan albums on Spotify in 2025, with over 1.5 million streams within six months of release.
With storytelling as a pillar to her music and performance, she explains that producing her own shows allows her to craft every aspect of it. And instead of waiting for bookings to come to her, her shows allow her to give audiences an immersive experience.
“When it’s your own show, you can do productions the way you want. There are sections where I want people to sit down and the lights are dimmer. Then there are moments I want everyone to vibe. In a theatre, regardless of the weather, people can still come and experience that," she says.
The dream of creating a grand self-produced show had been years in the making. It was primarily conceived as an album launch, but the plans were delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, followed by motherhood and recording commitments.
After releasing her Misimu EP in 2022, welcoming her daughter in 2023, and spending much of 2024 recording music, Serro finally brought the vision to life in 2025.
“It was important for me to curate something for myself. I look at artists here and internationally who do proper productions and tours, and I knew I wanted to create that kind of experience,” she says.
Staging her own annual productions has also given her greater freedom as a performer. Unrestricted, she performs long sets and showcases different sides of her art with her live band, The Charactaz. The setting, lighting, mood, and audience experience are all part of her storytelling.
“Sometimes waiting for people to call you for shows can be inconsistent when you’re trying to stay connected to your fans. When I do my own productions, I’m on stage for longer, and it allows many aspects of me as a performer to shine,” she says.
Her second signature event, Uani, is a different experience launched in 2018. Unlike the high-energy spectacle of Serro Live, Uani is an intimate production that blends two elements of storytelling, music and conversations.
Lovingly describing Uani as a group hug, she says it is a conversational space between her and her audience.
“The music is calmer. It is less about the stage, and we make it about the stories. We talk about where the songs come from and what they mean to us. It is songversations,” she says.
With both productions, she discloses that she doesn’t make any money from them; the tickets fund the production. For an artist who is not very mainstream, she adds that it is very difficult to get sponsors. She produces these two shows annually because she wants to give back to the lovers of her music.
“People now say that I’m one of the biggest live performers. There are those who cry in my shows. I really do work hard for them; my shows mean the world to me. I feel powerful and alive,” she says.
Serro writes from personal experiences with themes such as motherhood, pain, and growth. Dusk to Dawn revolves around life seasons of dusk, light, and dawn.
This honest storytelling, she says, was one of the most challenging parts of her creative process. Moreover, she realised that people aren’t really thinking about her; listeners are finding themselves in her stories.
“It feels like standing naked in front of the world. I’m much more confident now. I don’t doubt myself when I’m writing or in the studio. There is a lot more honesty and rawness in the music that I create,” she says.
She believes that all stories deserve to be told; therefore, she is open to telling under-represented stories. Inspired by a random conversation with Coster, who reminded her that all life is life, she wants to tell more stories by starting a podcast around this.
This way, more people feel represented and feel a little less lonely when they realise that other people have gone through the same thing.
She is inspired by the artists her father introduced her to, like Miriam Makeba, Brenda Fassie, and Franco Luambo, and later Sauti Sol, Atemi, and Dela.
For this reason, her music is niche in Benga traditions and folk influences, telling contemporary life experiences. She writes songs how she speaks: in Luo, Kiswahili, Sheng and English.
Serro, who has worked with artists such as Coster Ojwang, Mutoriah, Osanya and Onyach, hopes to collaborate with Ywaya Tajiri, and more female artists like Njoki Karu, Labdi, Amanda Black, Yemi Alade, and Beyoncé.