A Journey of Transformation
Judith Nyambura Mwangi, known to her fans as Avril, has always carried a quiet clarity about her. Once a high-flying musician who topped the Kenyan and East African charts, she now finds herself in a different chapter of her life. Her music days may be behind her, but that doesn’t mean she’s lost her spark. For Avril, who turns 40 this year, life is more than just one journey—it’s a book with multiple chapters.
“Life is like a book,” she says. “You don’t want to read a boring book that keeps repeating the same story. Life has chapters, and every chapter has to have a different story. So live life, do something, make it interesting, make it exciting.”
Age hasn’t dulled her; it has refined her. The polish from her university days when she first burst into the spotlight still shines, but now it carries weight and experience. Her eloquence is effortless, and every sentence comes out as philosophical—a modern-day Aristotle, you might say.
“I will be turning 40 this year, and I feel like life has to have different things. I have done the music thing, and I have loved it. I have been behind the music policy and loved it. I am now into entrepreneurship, and what I have learnt from the two is that not every business is supposed to last a lifetime. So, there are some careers that do not need to last a lifetime. So do things and move on,” she chuckles again.
Although she says she has ‘moved on’ from music, she is well aware when she contradicts herself by stating that she is not quitting doing music.
“Music is a calling you never leave. You may move on, but you just can’t leave. We have seen artistes who have been on stage for decades. How old is Madonna? 70? Isn’t she still performing even after all those decades of topping the charts?” she asks.
She also mentions the dangers of AI in the music industry. From her perspective, it’s a matter of time before musicians are edged out of their own space. Music streaming platforms have become so crowded with bot-built beats that it’s becoming harder for humans to stand out, leaving artistes with fewer listeners and less money.
Take, for instance, Spotify. In 2025, the Swedish giant audio streaming platform announced that it had deleted over 75 million AI-generated songs on its platform in its effort to curb the diversion of money supposed to be generated by real artistes.
Last year, Deezer, a music streaming service based in France, revealed that about 50,000 AI-generated songs are uploaded to the platform daily.
“How crazy is that. Right now, we are venturing into the unknown. As creatives, we are in direct competition with AI. It’s a new form of danger disguised as technological innovation. Soon or later, brands may not need us anymore.”
For Avril, entrepreneurship came almost as naturally as her music, owing much of the influence to her late father.
“He had a way of spotting opportunity. Much as he was opposed to my doing music, the curiosity of the industry always got the better of him. On the rare occasions he showed up to my gigs, he would ask questions about what went into putting up the show. How was the stage set up? How much did it cost? Who owned what? And things like that.”
She lost her dad in 2016 to a second heart attack, just days after surviving another that had him admitted to the high dependency unit.
“He had his demons, as all men do, but he offered me guidance that I am forever grateful for. After my Senior Six examination in Uganda, I wanted to do something related to art. It was a new concept from the usual known careers. So he asked me to find people in those lines of careers and speak to them before I could enrol. That is how I ended up studying Industrial Design at the University of Nairobi.”
Even as AI causes her some sleepless nights sometimes, Avril remains grateful to her music career that not only made her famous, but also gained a huge fan base and social media following—a crucial currency in today’s influencer marketing world—and a fortune.
She believes it was easier to make money from music then than it is the case today.
“That is because back in those days, when we started our music careers with all my peers, we treated music as a science. We would dissect it, analyse it, and understand the formula for how we were going to do it. How long would it take for us to see rewards? It helped us create structures. I feel that the approach we had back in the day was so structured that, for many of us, we have been able to live off our music to this day.”
