From as long as the pre-independence era, musicians have lent a strong voice in calling out injustices meted out on the general population. But as the years went by, the once powerful voices that once stood against such vices have since gone mute. Adalla Allan finds out what exactly happened to Kenya’s protest music.

The release of King Kaka’s spoken-word song Wajinga Nyinyi on December 14, 2019, brought back the memories of the days of yore when the airwaves were full of protest music.

The song, which addressed government corruption scandals, misappropriation of public funds by civil servants and the general state of injustice in the nation, was an attempt to point out the hardships the citizenry face as a result of their choices at the ballot.

The rapper went bare knuckle on the lyrics, as he is heard poking holes on the big scandals that have rocked the nation in the recent times and the voters’ silence on the matters in question.

Thanks to the power of social media, Wajinga Nyinyi went viral almost immediately, and has so far amassed more than 3.3 million views on YouTube.

The song came after a long and saddening mute of protest music believed to have started in Kenya during the colonial period.

Legendary music producer Tedd Josiah was a major player (in his capacity as a creative producer) to the vibrancy of protest music in Kenya in the 90’s and early 2000s.

However, he says the genre has gone underground in the country not because artistes are not producing it anymore, but because it’s currently not played by the mainstream media.

“It’s vibrant in the digital repositories where the masses have little access. People are in different mental spaces.

They have started embracing international music, which is all about partying and drinking. Just few media outlets would play Bob Marley and KRS-One’s music.

The media has been responsible for this metamorphosis since the audience gets to consume what is played on air and the media sets the agenda knowingly and at times unknowingly,” he intimates to Spice.

Post-independence killings

Protest music in Kenya dates back to the late 1960s just after independence, that had taken an abrupt change from “patriotic” songs composed to celebrate the newly attained uhuru in 1963.

However, in 1965, things would start to change when Pio Gama Pinto, a left-leaning journalist, politician, ex-detainee, freedom fighter and confidante of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was assassinated. Assassinations had started becoming the order of the day in Kenyan political landscape. 

Kenya African Democratic Union (Kadu), led by Jaramogi, was dissolved after the death of Pinto and in 1966, Jaramogi formed the Kenya Peoples Union (KPU) that his rival Jomo Kenyatta the then president was against.

Kenyatta was on the frontline to ensure the country remained a one-party state through the leadership of his Kenya African National Union (Kanu). And this was the beginning of the Kenyatta-Odinga rivalry.

“These events marked the beginning of protest music in the local scenes, as artistes saw it as the best instrument to articulate their desires in politics to the authoritative Kanu government. Musicians started to speak ‘truth to power’,” says music historian Tabu Osusa.

On January 29, 1969, Kenya’s first black lawyer Argwings Kodhek died in a suspicious accident in Nairobi. This was followed by the assassination of Tom Mboya, the Kenyan trade unionist, Pan-Africanist, independence activist, and statesman, in July the same year. 

Legendary Luo-benga musician late George Ramogi released the song Why Tom?, which was used to mourn the late son of Rusinga Island. In the song, Ramogi sings, “Ulimwengu tunamoishi wale wema tunawaua.

Mumeua kiongozi mwema, Asante yenyu ni teke la punda (In the world we are living in, the good ones are killed. You have killed a good leader, you never appreciated his efforts)”.

In another verse, the singer urges labourers to unite and hold a protest for justice to prevail following the Mboya’s assassination.

But this was just the beginning. On March 2, 1975, Nyandarua MP and former Kenyatta’s personal secretary Josiah Mwangi Kariuki popularly known as JM was murdered.

The late legendary Kikuyu benga singer and JM’s personal friend Joseph Kamaru used his music to protest the killing of the socialist politician. On June 20, 1975, the government banned Kamaru’s protest song dubbed JM Kariuki.

Far-flung influences

At that time, the music by the late Jamaican reggae icon Bob Marley had hit the centre stage across the world, as he released a hit after hit of protest music.

Bob was a relentless Pan-Africanist who sang against the European colonisation of the African mind and land, as well as the relationships necessary for world peace.

The Get Up Stand Up hit singer would himself get into a fuss with the then ruling Jamaican government. In November 1976, two days before Bob Marley and the Wailers were due to perform at a rally organised by the People’s National Party (PNP) during a fractious general election campaign, he and his wife Rita Marley were shot at and wounded.

“Yeah, I see myself as a revolutionary who has no help and takes no bribe from no one. I fight it single-handed with music,” Bob said in a 1979 interview in New Zealand, putting to rest any doubts about his intentions with the type of music he was releasing then.

Protest music continued to become popular around the world including in the United States. The likes of young rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur aka 2Pac adopted lyrics that addressed contemporary social issues that plagued inner cities.

He was deemed as a symbol of activism against inequality. Considered as one of the most influential rappers of all time, 2Pac is rated among the world’s best-selling music artistes of all time, having sold more than 75 million records worldwide.

The Changes hitmaker would often find himself on the wrong side of the law, as he tried to defend the less fortunate in the ghetto. He was shot and killed in 1996 aged just 26.

The influence by the activist musicians such as Bob and 2Pac would then enter into the play in Kenya in the early 90s. Pioneering Kenyan hip-hop group Kalamashaka was among the first musicians in the country to pick up the new chapter of protest music, after the then Moi regime had successfully silenced Zilizopendwa protest songs.

Also known as K-Shaka, the trio (Vigeti, Kama and Roba) became so prominent because of their usage of the Sheng street lingo that’s synonymous with the youth to rap and infuse politics in their lyrics, as found in their hit jams Ni Wakati (It’s Time) and Tafsiri Hii (Translate This). Tafsiri Hii, for instance, was an accusation of the prevailing inequality in Kenya and the disservice of the youth.

“Their rapping would talk about the state of their existence in the urban ghettos of Nairobi dominated by serious social strife, depressed economies, ethnic tensions, state corruption, institutional failure, infrastructural collapse, crime, violence, police brutality and extrajudicial killings. Just like their American role models, they were anti-establishment and explicitly political,” says Tedd.

Another hard-core hip-hop group Ukoo Flani Mau Mau would later follow suit with their own protest music.

From the get-go, the name Mau Mau raised eyebrows in the political scene, as the guerrilla liberation movement of the 1950s remained banned in Kenya till 2002.

Ukoo Flani groomed younger artistes such as rapper Juliani, who adopted its music style. By far, his 2013 protest song Utawala (Rule) remains his most popular jam.

Rain starts hitting

“However, it is saddening that with time, the popularity of protest music started to go underground. There was a new wave of urban music called Genge, which most of the protest music artistes and producers could not adapt to and this drove them underground.

Kalamashaka was a good example of this,” says music commentator Albanus Kitivo, who challenges the new-age artistes to do more of such music to castigate the social ills.

 Eric Musyoka, one of Kenya’s most remarkable music producers, accuses the commercialisation of the urban protest music as the other factor that sunk youthful urban voices deeper into oblivion.

Recalling his break-up with Kalamashaka, he poignantly says, “I learnt that a radical and hard stance does not help.

The so-called “market forces” conspired to lock out the voices that were not in line with the status quo.” This marked his transition from a producer of hip-hop to commercial music.

Tedd, who produced Kalamashaka and 2004 Kisima Award-winner Nazizi, adds that sound quickly shifted to the party way of life, which left the likes of Kalamashaka out.

“In recent days, young people will never talk about where they are due to the pressures that have come with things such as social media.

A ghetto girl would want to show how they live a luxurious life on social media. Kalamashaka sang about the hard slum life, which is obviously there, but the young blood are shying away from talking about it,” he says in conclusion.