Songs and Politics in Eastern Africa is a collection of articles that analyze the relationship between artists, musical genres, and politics. There is a variety of topics discussed in the collection from rural to urban, religious to secular, folkloric to popular, and commercial and educational cultural forms. Politics are dealt with extensively to include any instance where music and artists contest, support, or counter power structures. The breadth of topics rewards careful readers by providing them with a practical understanding of the many ways that music can connect to political issues in eastern Africa.
The forward suggests that the articles collectively look at “voices from the margins,” but readers also attain a sense of the social significance of popular artists who are influential in pushing for social change or overcoming political obstacles. Even in instances where artists incur problems in composing music that criticizes political leaders, they assist in shaping the identities and responding to the concerns of specific communities. Adams Oloo’s article on the Kenyan singer D.O. Misiani, for instance, emphasizes the career of this artist in being a voice for the Luo community in political affairs. Enduring arrests and censorship during his forty-year career, Oloo writes, Misiani’s songs have “contributed to the struggle for political change and [expressed] the tribulations of the Luo community at the hands of successive Kenyan regimes” (198). While Misiani may be a marginal voice in the sense that he was targeted by the ruling party and not considered to be within the power structures of the Kenyan nation, his music and ideas influenced and shaped a large community of listeners.
Many countries are presented in the book, though over half of the articles focus on Kenya, and there is only one article each for Uganda, Somalia, and Malawi. Only Mwenda Ntarangwi’s “Hip Hop, Westernization and Gender in East Africa” moves beyond the borders of one country to explore the broader context and meaning of music in East Africa. This usefully provides insight to the relationships and intertextuality of rap music in the region, which are then expanded in other articles, including Alice Bancet’s work in Tanzania and Aurélia Ferrari’s in Kenya. The combination of these three readings provides a useful means to interpret the significance and political potential of rap music among youth.
The most prevalent topic in Songs and Politics in Eastern Africa is the G?k?y? ethnic group. Articles that focus on the G?k?y? address a variety of themes, such as religion (chapter 1), gender (chapter 3), health (chapter 4), and conflict (chapter 9). Maina wa M?tonya’s article (chapter 7) examines m?giithi, a mostly performance-based genre in urban bars and nightclubs where a diverse audience listens to a variety of musical styles by a solo performer. M?tonya notes that these performances were adapted from all-night prayer vigils and often “echo ethnic consciousness” (163). Hervé Maupeu’s article, written in French, explores the work of Joseph Kamar?, the “king of G?k?y? benga” music, and provides a useful complement to Oloo’s article in covering forty years of an artist’s career.
Many articles focus on oral traditions and draw on the scholarship of prominent folklorists, such as Richard Bauman and Ruth Finnegan. Musambayi Katumanga’s article analyzes the folk poetry of the National Resistance Movement in Uganda, while Rayya Tiamammy discusses a Swahili epic composed for the 2002 Kenyan elections. Herbert Makoye details the use of song among sungusungu, a group that started as an organized civilian group among the Sukumu of Tanzania, which aimed to defend local populations, mostly against theft. Frowin Nyoni provides insight into the performance and composition of a traditional musical troupe that often supported the ruling party and ridiculed the opposition. Articles on Somalia and Malawi further expand the relation between oral traditions and political events.
My organization of the previous three paragraphs presents possible connections that run through this collection: genre (hip hop), ethnicity (G?k?y?), and oral traditions. Some similar form of organization for the sixteen articles would have benefited the overall collection by drawing the reader to these or other relationships between the chapters. The articles, however, are presented without any specific organization. Perhaps this was intentional—a means to move away from creating dominant overarching interpretations and allowing the authors to present each of their topics relatively unencumbered. Yet, organizing the articles by themes or topics would have helped readers, particularly those unfamiliar with eastern Africa, attain a stronger familiarity with the elements that shape the association of song and politics in eastern Africa.
The most significant issue in the collection is the lack of consistency of the text across all chapters. Many articles do not provide references for citations found in the body of the text. One article is missing the references altogether, while another lists the references in the footnotes rather than at the end of the article as occurs with other chapters. The presentations of translations of songs and poems vary throughout the book and within articles: sometimes the translation is beside the original language, while other times it is below each line or below the entire original text. There are misspellings of people’s names, and even the spelling of ethnic groups is not always consistent. G?k?y? is written four different ways, with and without the tildes and with an initial K rather than a G. Several chapters also lack specificity as to time and place, which makes interpreting the meaning of the articles problematic. Finally, many paragraphs appear in italics for no apparent reason: they are neither in a foreign language nor being emphasized.
The organization and consistency issues, however, should not detract from the importance of the collection. This work continues the efforts by Mkuki wa Nyota Publishers to provide important studies on the relationship of culture to the expressive arts. The articles provide insight into topics, genres, and artists that have remained unexplored in academic scholarship before this publication. That alone is a significant and rewarding achievement. Further, this collection presents the importance of interpreting the mechanisms of songs in political contexts. Tanzania is gearing up for an election in late 2010, while courts are still deciding whether to persecute leaders who helped to fuel the conflicts that occurred after the 2007 Kenyan election. Somalia and Uganda continue to endure conflicts within their borders. Music will remain a part of these events, which makes this collection valuable for attaining a sense of the meaning and importance of songs in political contexts.
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[Review length: 1067 words • Review posted on May 21, 2010]