17

Verbal Fluidities and Masculine Anxieties of the Glocal Urban Imaginary in Kenyan Genge Rap1

Chris Wasike Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology

This chapter tracks the emergence of a rap genre dubbed ‘genge’ rendered in sheng- an urban slang which is a mixture of Swahili, English and other local dialects. Positioning genge within the milieu of cultural expressions that give voice to marginalized urban youths, the article examines how several genge rappers appropriate urban spaces, delineate them as sites of masculine domination, contestation and urban cosmopolitanism within the larger glocal imaginary desires. The analysis uses lyrics of songs by Jua Cali, Nonini and others, to illustrate how their deployment of poetic lyricism romanticizes the Nairobi city spaces as melting pots of masculine fears, tensions and anxieties.

Key words: genge rap, urban slang, identity, masculine domination, cosmopolitanism, Nairobi

Introduction: Popular Culture in the Kenya Context Riding on the crest of his recent crown as the ‘undisputed king’ of genge, Jua Cali (real name Peter Anunda) is one of Kenya’s foremost artistes in the now popular, rapid genre of hard core rap. His lyrical personality and the genre of music he produces have continued to endear him to party-loving youths and a huge chunk of young adults. In this essay, I argue that Jua Cali’s genge rap style is not just fluid but is inundated with discourses of ur- ban masculinities and anxieties of the glocal urban imaginaries. In addition, the style and thematic preoccupation in his songs appears to be subtended by desires of the American dream which situates this localized version of hard core rap within the binarity of local and global, or simply glocal. Of particular interest for me is the fluidity with which most genge rap songs in general simultaneously occupy different spaces within the local and global urban imaginary. Benefiting from the views of American hip hop rap scholar Tricia Rose, I hope to unravel the theoretical import of fluidity in relation to genge rap as a genre that privileges flow, layering and ruptures in lines, or

1 The rap lyrics for all the songs used in this paper were accessed from www.youtube.com/music and transcribed by the author. Special thanks though go to Kimingichi Wabende who teaches drama and performance at the University of Nai- robi for helping me fill in the gaps for some of the lyrics of Jua Cali’s latest song hits such as ‘Ngeli ya genge’ and ‘Maneno Matamu.’ 356 Chris Wasike simply put the ways in which the rapper’s ‘lyrical lines are set in motion, broken abruptly, with sharp angular breaks yet they sustain motion and energy through fluidity and flow’ (194). More importantly, I seek to demon- strate how this rap variety sentimentalizes the city of Nairobi in comparison with American cities in the larger global context. But, before delineating all these features, it is important to contextualize the various studies carried out so far on popular music in Kenya. Several scholars have engaged with the genres of rap music and popular culture in the Kenyan context that include Nyairo and Ogude; Nyairo ‘Popular Music, Popular Politics,’ ‘Popular Music and Negotiation’; Hof- meyr, Nyairo and Ogude; wa Mutonya, ‘Mugiithi Performance’ ‘Praise and Protest; Mwangi ‘Sex, Music,’ ‘Masculinity’; wa Mungai and Githiora. For instance, Nyairo and Ogude explore how a Kenyan popular rap group, Gidi Gidi Maji Maji, uses their music as political texts of mapping out different cultural identities in the Kenyan and American contexts. Using illustrations from the group’s popular hit Unbwogable, Nyairo demonstrates how popular music is deployed to negotiate history, politics and identity within the Ken- yan nation-state. In her analysis of the same hit song, she grapples with issues of the global and local in relation to the allure and desires for Ameri- can lifestyle among Kenyan youth. More recently, wa Mutonya ‘Mugiithi,’ wa Mungai and Githiora have attempted to use illustrations from popular Ki- kuyu musical genres such as mugithi and gicandi to interrogate power, per- formance and identity in Kenyan popular ethnic musical genres. In particu- lar, wa Mungai’s analysis of ethnic musical genres as mediated through VCDs produced by the fast-growing Kenya movie industry now dubbed Riverwood is particularly refreshing. His critical examination of how visual recordings can transform the attitude that viewers have towards popular musicians is illuminating especially because he situates his analysis squarely within River road, an urban space that is symbolic of the struggles of the poor in the Nairobi cityscape. Evan Mwangi in ‘Masculinity and Nationalism’ gives an in-depth analysis of East African hip-hop from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. From Kenya Mwangi uses the popular genge rapper, Nonini, to explain concepts of na- tionalism and masculinity, explaining the various sites of performing mascu- linity/nationalism within his music. He observes that ‘music identity politics is the notion of masculinity in which the construction of community is in- terpreted as a masculine enterprise’ (1). His view that East African hip-hop is ‘a productive site upon which the local, the national and the global contest and negotiate…to create a transnational and regional agenda that goes be- yond individual nation-states’ (ibid) is what this essay builds. This essay illustrates how the Nairobi urban spaces that are mapped by genge artists are