Six years ago, when Chief Nyamweya, a Kenyan animator and creative director, became a father, he evolved from making adult-focused graphic novels and crime fiction content to also catering to children’s entertainment. He had published his first graphic novel in 2010 and, together with his team, launched an animation studio about three years later. He had also had his comic featured consistently for four years in a local newspaper. But fatherhood, like a magic wand, opened his eyes to a sector of the creative market he had previously neglected, which is children’s programming. All he wanted at first, as a millennial parent, were songs and stories with which he could entertain and shape the minds of his children. This craving led to research that eventually birthed Uli & Tata’s African Nursery Rhymes, an animated series for children produced by Sarah Mallia and directed by Nyamweya himself, with on-the-ground research for the cultural and musical content of the show spearheaded by Abdi Rashid Jibril. The series began airing on YouTube on October 25th, 2024.
Uli & Tata’s African Nursery Rhymes follows a brother and sister, Uli and Tata, who discover strange instruments in their Nairobi home with which they summon Tuki, a giant singing turaco from the Kakamega rainforest, who transports them across Africa in search of the continent’s nursery rhymes. Through these nursery rhymes and songs, the children are introduced to Kenyan folklore with relevant moral lessons and the rich storytelling traditions of Africa. Courtesy of Pungulu Pa Productions, the animation series explores and celebrates the cultural heritage and natural landscape of Africa, most especially in Kenya, introducing to the young audience an autochthonous value system that is enshrined in melodious didactic songs. Each episode, with a running time ranging from two to over fifty minutes, bears a unique story-song and lesson that is refreshing and inspiring to viewers.
Embarking on the production of this series, Nyamweya aimed for a style that would distinguish his work from those of other illustrators in Kenya. He was bored with the many 3D animation works around that were made using the same software to generate characters of smooth, rounded looks, and opted for 2D instead. His visual approach to the animation series involved the use of the dry brush technique, which was challenging because the team had to apply textures to the characters. “When you look at the characters, you can see the texture in their faces and their clothes,” the creative director recalls. “It made the files heavier, but we said it was worth having that burden if it gave us a unique look instead of a common one”.
A prominent element of Uli & Tata’s African Nursery Rhymes is realism. This is achieved through the use of songs with stories rendered in English, French, or indigenous East African languages like Swahili, Gĩkũyũ (Kikuyu) and Luhya, which are rooted in African oral traditions, and references to real-life places and people. The latest episode is set in Mount Kenya, the highest mountain in Kenya and second-highest in Africa, after Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro. It centers on Ngũcũ, a Gĩkũyũ folk song that is used for celebration on special occasions or to tease opponents during competitions, a symbolic gesture of courage and resilience. The Gĩkũyũ people refer to Mount Kenya as Kirinyaga, a place of illumination that holds immense cultural, spiritual and historical significance. They believe it is the abode of Ngai, the supersensible being and ultimate creator whom they face and pray to when seeking favours.
Another episode of the show explores the Arabuko-Sokeke Forest situated around Kilifi, a coastal county in Kenya, with a focus on the Mwananyani song of the native Giriama people. Named after a mischievous forest monkey, the folk song mocks foolishness and playfully passes a moral or social message about human behavior. The Giriama are one of the nine tribes that constitute the Mijikenda community along the Kenyan coast, with their primary settlements being Kilifi, Ganze and Kaloleni.
Behind each episode lies painstaking research, one that negotiates between cultural immersion and creative reinvention. Nyamweya and his team begin by travelling to those locations in Kenya to identify songs that are befitting for children and the values they intend to communicate. They prioritize popular songs, with the intent of facilitating nostalgic connection and creating a sense of recognition in the community. Sometimes, they equip the songs with modern instrumentation, ensuring to preserve their familiar and authentic identity. Then, they extract the lyrics of the songs and build stories around them. A particular episode, the creative director says, reveals a song that was about planting seeds, with the story generated from that idea.
From budgeting to distribution, Uli & Tata’s African Nursery Rhymes is plagued by production challenges that are not unique to the project but are rather reflective of Africa’s volatile filmmaking ecosystem. During fundraising, Nyamweya’s team often had to justify the significant amounts allocated to research. Many potential investors struggled to understand why such extensive fieldwork was necessary for an animated show, arguing that the research could simply be done on a computer. However, for the team, that investment was essential to avoid stereotypes and maintain authenticity.
Nyamweya claims that many Kenyan shows do not have the luxury of broadcasters paying for content or a local distribution network to work with. The same fate greets Uli & Tata’s African Nursery Rhymes. But then, the filmmakers’ pragmatism seems to be paying off. The show is available on a free-to-air Kenyan kids channel called Akili Kids, and was screened at the 6th edition of the NBO Film Festival that occurred from 16th to 26th October, 2025. The multinational creative team, which includes collaborators from the UK, Nigeria and Tanzania, are currently planning their first event in December that reinforces the popularity of the show, bringing together its audience. With a broadcast audience of approximately five million children, they hope to build a sustainable business model for the ongoing production.
Animation is described as a digital ecosystem of storytelling that involves 2D/3D content creation and animated media production that cuts across education, entertainment, advertising and gaming. In recent times, the African animation industry has experienced commendable growth. Tracking this growth, Market Data Forecast reveals that as of 2024, the industry was valued at 14.52 billion dollars, is estimated at 15.71 billion dollars this year, and is expected to reach USD 29.51 billion by 2033, developing at 8.20% growth rate from 2025 to 2033. This is followed by specific market milestones. In July 2023, South Africa’s Triggerfish Studio released Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, an Afrofuturist production, on Disney+, and by January 2024, its Academy extended her mentorship programme across Rwanda and Uganda, training over 300 animators and tightening its grip on the African animation market. Around March 2024, the UK-based Kush Films partnered with Kenyan telecommunications giant Safaricom to introduce zero-rated mobile animations, an initiative geared toward aligning the African animation industry with educational content. These few testaments show the potential of the continent’s fast-growing animation market.
As Nyamweya rightly believes, animation is a mainstay of the film industry anywhere in the world and should not be treated as peripheral or sub-distinct. He uses the analogy of restaurants serving food, any edible substance with nutritional value that is capable of solving hunger, even if it means the restaurants are located across different regions and produce different meals unique to their regions. There is also a question over the quality of the audience for animation in Africa, to which the creative director responds that it has a large and loyal following, sometimes even more loyal than live-action films. He references his youngest child’s obsessive attraction to the famous British animated television series, Peppa Pig, whose cult following he believes is difficult to replicate with older viewers because they are likely to easily change tastes with long-running shows. But he admits the existence of a commendably dedicated adult audience, as observed with shows like the Japanese anime series Devil May Cry (2007) that are tailored specifically for adults.
“Children under five cannot engage with live-action in the same way they do with animation,” Nyamweya says in addition. “The colours, movement, and imagination hold their attention.”
On Uli & Tata’s African Nursery Rhymes, there seems to be a balance between African storytelling and the reliance on Western models, with the show even often tilting towards the former. When asked about how this is achieved, Nyamweya considers both the business and cultural perspectives. He acknowledges that because animation is expensive to produce and distribute, many African creators are forced into partnerships with Western companies through which they cede ownership of their projects. By losing ownership, the creators lose control over the creative direction of their works. This is what happened with Iwaju, an original animated series set in a futuristic Lagos, Nigeria, which was sold to Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Today, it is impracticable to produce any form of digital entertainment without recourse to Western media forms and technology, which defeats the notion of unadulterated modern African arts and culture. An instance of this is noticeable in the legacy of the legendary Afrobeat icon, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. During his lifetime, he was believed to have never compromised his style, adamantly sticking to long, instrumentation-heavy live-band music with complexities that are difficult to adapt for today’s three-minute commercial radio format. In refitting lengthy traditional music into shorter formats appropriate for animation or television, Nyamweya says his team face a similar dilemma. However, with such compromise, what matters the most is the heart of the content, ensuring to retain the right emotion, spirit and energy.
How does Nyamweya and his team know they are on the right track? Ever since Uli & Tata’s African Nursery Rhymes debuted, the team has entertained audience feedback, which is mostly encouraging. The creative director says that some adults have admitted to being tearfully reminded of their childhood while watching the show. Others have expressed satisfaction at seeing an animated show in their indigenous languages. Again, both situations are proof that content wins regardless of whatever the form for delivery is.
Uli & Tata’s African Nursery Rhymes is more than just a show that revamps and repackages ancient African stories for contemporary appreciation. It is also an aspirational reflection of the diversity of the continent, with indigenous languages acting as vehicles for the projection of values within and beyond the continent. “Uli and Tata tries to make people appreciate other cultures within the continent,” he says. “It makes a Hausa child enjoy a Swahili song or a Yoruba child learn about Kenyan stories.”
For Nyamweya, the show is an expression of Afrocentric optimism, reinforcing the belief that genuine African unity is achievable even with cultural and historical diversity. While European countries seem to thrive on their homogeneity, Nyamweya encourages Africans to find collective strength in their differences. The hope is that shows like Uli & Tata’s African Nursery Rhymes motivate seamless cultural exchanges among the current and future generations, making African children feel connected across borders.
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