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Revista Humania AFRICA 8.Indd Humania del Sur. Año 5, Nº 8. Enero-junio, 2010. Maina wa Mutonya. Th e Beat Goes On: Performing Postcolonial Disillusionment in Kenya. pp. 47-66. Th e Beat Goes On: Performing Postcolonial Disillusionment in Kenya Maina wa Mutonya Centro de Estudios de Asia y África El Colegio de Mexico, Mexico [email protected] Abstract Several decades after independence, most African countries have continually performed dismally in actualising the dreams and aspirations of their citizenry. Th e post-independence disillusionment has been expressed in various forms in these postcolonial African states. Music is one of the cultural forms, like literature and theatre, which artists in Kenya have employed as a force that continually constructs an alternative political and social reality, away from offi cialdom, in a way to respond to the postcolonial challenges. Th is paper is an exposé on the fundamental role that popular music has played in postcolonial Kenya as one of the salient sites of the struggle between the rulers and the ruled. Th e paper draws on songs from two artists, Joseph Kamaru and Eric Wainaina. Keywords: Kenya, popular music, postcolonial disillusionment, Joseph Kamaru, Eric Wainaina, Kenyan history, Mau Mau. El ritmo sigue: Desilusión funcional postcolonial en Kenya Resumen Varias décadas luego de la independencia, el desempeño de la mayoría de los países africanos en sus intentos por materializar los sueños y aspiraciones de sus ciudadanos ha sido desconsolador. En estos Estados africanos postcoloniales la desilusión post independentista se ha expresado de distintas formas. La música, junto a la literatura y el teatro, ha sido una de las formas culturales a través de las cuales los artistas en Kenia han logrado construir continuamente una realidad política y social alternativa, alejada de la ofi cialidad, a fi n de responder a los desafíos post coloniales. Este artículo es una disertación sobre el rol fundamental que ha tenido la música popular en la Kenia postcolonial, como uno de los lugares más connotados de la lucha entre gobernantes y gobernados. Este artículo toma como base las canciones de dos artistas: Joseph Kamaru y Eric Wainana. Palabra clave: Kenia, música popular, desilusión postcolonial, Joseph Kamaru, Eric Wainana, historia Keniana, Mau Mau. Recibido: 26-02-10 / Aceptado: 15-03-10 Humania del Sur 47 Humania del Sur. Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos, Africanos y Asiáticos. Universidad de Los Andes, Mérida. Año 5, Nº 8. Enero-junio, 2010. ISSN: 1856-7959. Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it. Bertold Brecht in Askew2003:633 Th is article locates the power relations between the ruling elite and the citizenry in Kenya, as expressed in the popular music of Joseph Kamaru and Eric Wainaina. However, this relationship should not be seen in absolute binary opposition between the rulers and the subjects. As Achille Mbembe (1992) has argued, this is a relationship that is laden with ambivalences, because of the very nature of the postcolony. Describing this situation as mutual zombifi cation between rulers and subjects, Mbembe asserts: [T]he postcolonial relationship is not primarily a relationship of resistance or of collaboration but can be best characterized as illicit cohabitation, a relationship made fraught by the very fact of the commandment and its ‘subjects’ having to share the same living space. (1992: 4) Additionally, in the context of this paper, power relations don’t necessarily remain a relationship between the ruler and the ruled only. Every other facet of our lives derives or has a bearing towards the politics of the day. I appropriate the term ‘politics of everyday life’ to refer to the ‘actualities of individual interaction within the society’ as Terence Ranger (1991:149) aptly puts it. Th erefore, politics should not be seen as simply occurring through coercion, consciousness or formal political mechanisms, but in ‘informal processes of socialisation. In the words of Balliger (1999: 68-9), domination, therefore, can also be resisted through informal means including cultural practices like music. Th us, music does not reside in music texts themselves but in their articulation with society. Th e articulation then encapsulates the politics of everyday life. As James Scott (1990:37-8) argues, popular culture, in this case, popular music, ‘provides a “hidden transcript” in which is written ‘the an- ger and reciprocal aggression denied by the presence of domination’. Th is hidden transcript, he argues, is found in ‘rumours, folktales, gossip, jokes, songs, rituals, codes, and euphemism’ (1990: 19). Th e interaction between popular culture and politics, or in fi ner terms between music and society involves a struggle over subject-producing practices which gain meaning in specifi c contents and moments, rhythms, sounds, and collective spaces may affi rm ways of being and produce embo- 48 Humania del Sur Humania del Sur. Año 5, Nº 8. Enero-junio, 2010. Maina wa Mutonya. Th e Beat Goes On: Performing Postcolonial Disillusionment in Kenya. pp. 47-66. diment in opposition to dominant society. Popular culture then becomes, not always a site of resistance, but also of asserting authority, depending on the moment of production and the meaning attached to the song. In situations where the interface of popular culture and politics is investigated, then I view the idea of the popular as a political moral category: ‘the defi nition of the popular being that which functions in the interests of the masses (the farmers, workers, unemployed) by opening up their eyes to their own objective, historical situation, the actual conditions of their existence and thus enabling them to empower themselves’ (Barber, 1997: 5). Masses are not always unaware of their predicaments. Popular culture just accentuates their feeling of hopelessness, but at the same time coalescing their misery as an arsenal against assumed prejudices. Street (1997:10) refl ecting on the interconnectedness between popular culture and politics agrees that ‘popular culture’s ability to produce and articulate feelings can become the basis of an identity, and that identity can be the source of political thought and action’. It is in trying to articulate emotions that popular culture links us to the outside world. Th e popular music investigated in this paper does not just refl ect emotions, but plays out ‘everyday moral dilemmas, posing questions and suggesting answers to our worries, about what we should do’ (Street, 1997: 9) 1.- Popular Music and the Quest for Independence A sound understanding of the politics of the Kenyan postcolony, and the role of popular culture therein must be situated from the colonial period. A number of cultural practitioners in Africa seem to believe that the present situation is just a continuation of colonialism under the guise of independence. Writers like Ngugi wa Th iong’o, Chinua Achebe, and musicians like Fela Kuti and Eric Wainaina have been critics of their respec- tive postcolonial states arguing that much as colonialism is to be blamed, current leadership is also responsible for the disillusionment. In particular, Kenyan author, Ngugi wa Th iong’o (1993:91), in his seminal study on the struggle for cultural freedoms, Moving the Centre argues that, just like the colonial regimes, the postcolonial governments have resorted to repressing democracy. Th is repressive nature has, however, spawned a proliferation of cultural activities to respond to these challenges, as well as providing a space for alternative regimes of history and truth. It is in this view that this paper investigates the fundamental role that popular music played in the years during and after colonialism, in this case, in Kenya. Humania del Sur 49 Humania del Sur. Revista de Estudios Latinoamericanos, Africanos y Asiáticos. Universidad de Los Andes, Mérida. Año 5, Nº 8. Enero-junio, 2010. ISSN: 1856-7959. In the years between the 1930s and the late 1950s, during the Kenyan struggle for independence from colonial rule, and also during the Mau Mau war in the 1950s, a genre of music evolved that functioned to articulate a vision of a postcolonial Kenya and to affi rm a sense of pride, identity and community amongst black Kenyan peasants and workers. Song and dance functioned in an emancipatory manner because it enabled people to share their burdens, triumphs and gladness of heart by singing about the common oppressor and exploiter; the colonialist. It drew people together and united them in one common aim, goal or purpose. As the South African black consciousness leader Steve Biko (1978: 60) asserted, song and dance is able to ‘promote a culture of defi ance, group pride, self-assertion and solidarity that emanates from a situation of common experience of oppression and is responsible for the restoration of our faith in ourselves’. During the Kenyan struggle for independence and through the fo- llowing decades, music served to unite and mobilize the masses of ordinary Kenyans at times when the welfare and stability of the community was in jeopardy. Th ough varied in modes of expression, the peoples’ reaction to communal crisis is strikingly similar throughout the years under colonialism and after. During the Mau Mau, for instance, song was used consistently to nag, cajole, and implore the Gky community to fi ght for their dignity and identity. Ngugi wa Th iong’o shows that during the colonial period, Mthrg and Kanyegenyri dances were utilised by anti-colonial forces to express resistance. He goes on to demonstrate that culture in Kenya has long been an important theatre of political confrontation, enumerating a number of colonial and postcolonial cultural productions that arose in response to political repression (1993: 88). Talking of the impact of the song-narrative in creating bonds among a community, Ruth Finnegan (1970: 285) in her seminal study of oral literature in Africa argues: One of the best examples of the use of songs for secret propaganda is the hymns [that were] used by the Mau Mau in Kenya in the early 1950s.
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