About Us

The Beginning

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, anti-intellectual propaganda and shallow conversations were over the surface of Nairobi, and the Spirit of Intellectualism was hovering over the city, looking for a home. The social spaces looked ideal.

3 And God said, “Let there be Drunken Lectures,” and there was Drunken Lectures. 4 God saw that the lectures were good.

An idea that sprouted in a gentleman in Nairobi was shared in a social space, sober. Shared to another guy, without drinking they thought, “smart conversations like these should be had more often, better with a drink in hand.” A month later, the latter gentleman had a conversation with an open minded cafe/restaurant owner in Nairobi CBD. The lady skeptical but convicted decided to give it a shot. The gentleman had a similar conversation with a smart historian friend, “please come teach guys about some interesting study you have done? In a bar.” The sober friend obliged.

On the 24th of February, in the dark scary streets of Nairobi, young – thirsty for a drink and knowledge — people came to listen to the historian teach on the History of the second president of Kenya’s economic decisions. Shared the nitty gritties of the external influences and managed to convince Kenyans that their most infamous president was not that bad.

This was just the beginning of a new Nairobi. A lot of beautiful feedback from the 130+ members of the audience. You and I know how honest kids and drunk people are. The news spread and spread. The second one was on how to brew beer and the walls of Cafe Amka could not hold. The laughter, the mindblowing information from brewer Tracey, the humour from our audience and the huge number of people in attendance all together. Chairs had to be borrowed and guys volunteered to stand. The city felt it, the city felt the shift and the heaviness of its people grew on it as their brains got fuller.

The now:

Nothing much changed after t to the Drunken Lecture you know and love today. The concept stuck and the audience looked forward to seeing us. We had sold out shows of 120+ back to back, growth was banging on our door like crazy. We had to oblige and move to a bigger space.

Bid the streets and the home that made us and like Nairobi men moved on to ‘something better’. It was not her, it was us. We are going in different directions. It just felt like it was time. The time was just not right for us to be together.

A bigger venue, yes. We still sold out, capacity? 250. 250 Nairobians gather twice a month to have conversations with each other, satisfy an intellectual itch, reflect and reimagine.

Conversions are so diverse, range is our middle name and our loyalists often complain about the gift of being educated on the most random stuff. Politics, geopolitics, science, math, philosophy, psychology you name it. The most beautiful part is constantly having ears and minds that care about what we have going on.

The how:

A product conceptualized in a community, grows with a community. At the heart of all our lectures is it’s people. The people we do this for, you. Everything is curated to feed off our society and feed it right back.

The most important bit is done in a russian roulette manner. We feed off what we get and a bit of looking. We have a public google forms where anyone who wants to lecture about anything just applies. We have had more than 250+ lecturer applications in the last year.

There are a lot of passionate and brainy people in this city. We have managed to host only 28 main lectures as of March 2026. We have done 20+ special editions with almost half being a repetition of the main lectures and the other, new lecturers.

In times of dire need, the environment we are in as a society/country determines, we often solicit. We have addressed key issues like the Finance Bill 2025, Police brutality, Christmas, Kenya's Debt and such through looking for experts on the field to come teach.

We usually have a host of the session, one per session, and even volunteer to do it through a public call. We have had 10+ different hosts over time. Guys that use the platform to boost their confidence, exercise their audience engagement craft and generally just offer their contribution to the movement. This has beautiful and we are forever grateful, receive a big kiss from the writer. Consensually and on the cheek of course.

The structure:

The 3 hr, sometimes 2 and half?, session is broken into three parts:

a. The first hour we let the audience pour and spew knowledge to us and each other.
We give out a bunch of prompts to members of the audience, divided into groups of 10-15. These prompts are centered around the topic and theme of the evening. Funny, witty, sarcastic prompts.

We are very intentional with them, we give a space for grown adults to laugh on a Monday, I know I know the lord’s work. They discuss the prompt assigned to them in the group and assign the responsibility of sharing their findings to one member of the group.

We get a feel of the audience, their perspectives of the topic and they get to teach us and laugh about it. Therapy to be honest.

b. We then get to serious business immediately after. The lecturer is introduced and they give their lecture for 30 min-40 min.

The structure of the lecture:
i) History – how it started
ii) The Now – current context
iii) The now what – call to action

c. Q & A – audience engages directly with lecturer

d. Trivia – short 10 min segment with prizes

All this happens in a bar and restaurant as the audience eats and drinks and have conversations with strangers.

The Future:

I am tempted to say, ‘is now’, because it is. Drunken lectures is committed to continue centering the society, its people and the wellbeing of every human in this city and beyond.

We preach the gospel of love as much as we preach intellectualism. We look forward to educating, being part of change that is dire in our communities, being the voice of the people and a tool to sharpen our thoughts, challenge our thinking and fill our cups.

A never ending foundation of good things and knowledge.

Drunken lectures is a product of Lectura collective, an organisation committed to disseminate knowledge and spread it. Reshape the way we think and give room to reimagine better versions of our systems and self.

Products of Drunken Lectures:

A. Nyi-robi
A contemporary magazine that voices kenyans thoughts on different subjects. The magazine is a compilation of all the different lectures we have done in 2025.

More than 15+ collections of think pieces, articles, essays and non-fiction works written by different kenyan thinkers. Available on leading kenyan bookstores.

B. Yap-lectures
A spin-off of drunken lectures that is centered on telling people's stories. Hosted once a month, it is the not very serious version of Drunken lectures.

Here, the crowd engages and gives lectures (yaps) as well. The first hour, no discussions, just mini lectures for 3-5 min from the audience, related to the theme of the day. A main yap lecture and then a Q&A segment after.

Meant to serve as an archive for Kenyan social and political tales.