Does Kenya Really Have A Naija Music Problem

Does Kenya Really Have A Naija Music Problem?
1 of 7
about:reader?url=http://www.okayafrica.com/news/does-kenya-really-ha...
okayafrica.com
Does Kenya Really Have A Naija Music

Problem?
Eric Wainaina
Photo courtesy of Eric Wainaina

The story is often told about the mother cheetah who comes back
home from the hunt to find her cubs have been trampled to death by
elephants. Knowing that she is no match for these giants, she
blames and kills a herd of goats. Similarly, when a group of Kenyan
musicians took to the streets last week calling for less Nigerian and
Tanzanian music, they were killing goats. The elephant in this case
9/5/2015 02:24
2 of 7
is history. However, not even history is a match for innovation.

Its funny, but the country music star Kenny Rogers can come to
Kenya today, charge an arm and a leg, and play a month of sold-out
stadium gigs. Yet his heyday was in the 80s. The same holds true
for top-tier Nigerian acts. Their time, however, is now. Kenya seems
predisposed to preferring the foreign, the exotic, the western. At the
risk of being accused of bringing up that old trope, it all began with
the erosion of our culture when the colonialists came. Colonialism
eroded Kenyan culture I daresay more than it did in West Africa, in
Uganda, in Tanzania. Kenya was a settler state. The Brits had no
plans of going anywhere. Ever. And in their assistance, and under
duress, we threw the culture baby out with the pagan bath water and
planted the Church and the Union Jack over the scene of the crime
dressed in mandatory, state-issued calico cloth threatened by the
physical and mental whips of our settler masters. And when the new
government in independent Kenya clamped down on the Funk
movement of the late 70s along with all other artistic expression,
threatening and jailing academics in the universities and strangling
the media, we shrunk into our cocoons, allowing ourselves instead
to be satiated and sedated by the likes of ABBA, The Bee Gees and
The Beatles. Homegrown innovation had been dealt a blow that
would take us decades to recover from. I was born middle class (and
English-speaking) in the 70s. My predilection for all things Western
was established early in life. I would be irritated, nay embarrassed,
when Id get home from school and find the housekeeper blasting
that shady Rhumba. When I began my music career in the 90s
there werent many Kenyan musicians to look up to. Anyone who
had managed to record anything had been condemned by society to
dying, drunk or living poor, a result of loose morals and bad
9/5/2015 02:24
3 of 7
choices.
Im always slightly embarrassed when I introduce myself to folks I
meet around the continent. Im Eric, while the South Africans are
Kgomotso'; the Nigerians are Olusegun. Even while the
Tanzanians might be Damien pronounced Da-mi-YEN they
speak Kiswahili with such ease and fluidity having studied subjects
like Biology in their national language. The Kiswahili language rolls
off their tongues like honey to the easy beat of Bongo Flavour, as
close as you can get to Zouk singing on dry land. As a result, in
Tanzania, American Idol loses pride of place to Project Bongo, a
reality show focusing on homegrown talent. Conversely, urban
Kenyans get as far as Sheng, a hybrid of Kiswahili and vernacular
so diverse that kids from estates separated by as little as a highway
have different names for the same thing. Sheng dictionaries become
obsolete by the time they go to press, owing to the rapidity in the
change of vocabulary. A Sheng speaker can date you to within a
year of your birth, locate your home to within a street by the word
you use for car or mobile phone. In the rural areas, Kiswahili is as
foreign as Greek, and is spoken only by those who might have
picked it up in school or by those ethnicities whose ethnic language
shares a common Bantu base with Kiswahili, akin to that between
Italian and Spanish. We claim to have a national language. Listen
again.
Then comes the issue of national pride. If Nigerians were to group
the peoples of the world in order of superiority they would place
themselves first. Them. The Americans. Manchester United. In that
order. They have a very healthy self-image. In music the battle
between Nigeria and Kenya continues to be fought mainly in the
9/5/2015 02:24
4 of 7
latter. Im not sure Naija musicians even know theres a contest

running, and are a mixture of bemused and irritated by the
prevalence of their music on our media observed when they visit.
Urban legend recounts a Naija artist rebuking a Kenyan journalist
for fawningly informing him that he was more famous than any
Kenyan artist in Kenya. This would never happen in Nigeria, he
said. I want to thank him but Im not sure that this isnt a threat.
Where Nigerians are proud, Kenyans are mild-mannered. Where
Nigerians are loud, we are meek. We suffer silently and only let our
anger come out in large expressions of violence that shock the
world. If a coup breaks out in most parts of Africa today its greeted
by a sigh and a ho-hum by the Western world. When one thousand
Kenyans meet their deaths at the hands of their own countrymen the
world stops. It takes one million Rwandese to get a similar effect. We
are non-confrontational as a people and the largely conservative
masses led by an even more conservative elite are happier to
hunker down behind their corporate desks, more content with the
bottom line than the shaking of bottoms. We pray for the day we will
beat Nigeria at football. Were used to losing to them. For the sake of
the Nigerian team we hope that that victory happens in Kenya. At
least we will grant them asylum. Nigerians are not used to losing to
Kenya. If our victory happens in Lagos, no one is leaving the
stadium alive.
We are, however, Africans together for international events. As
Kenyans, we held our breath with them when one of the preferred
candidates to succeed Pope John Paul II, the Nigerian Cardinal
Arinze, got closer to the prize. But in secret we thanked God that he
wasnt elected because we would have never heard the end of it. For
9/5/2015 02:24
5 of 7
similar reasons, before we sleep, we raise a prayer of thanksgiving

that Obama has Kenyan and not Nigerian roots. But this inferiority
complex has plagued us even since the African Writer Series was
founded in 1962- Chinua, Wole, Cyprian Ekwensi, Elechi Amadi.
Growing up we seemed to be more aware of them than we were of
Ngugi and Meja Mwangi; Soyinkas The Lion and The Jewel
getting more runs than Imbugas Betrayal In The City.
But when Kenyan artists march the streets asking for more airplay,
what do they really mean? Surely they dont mean a total ban?
Where would we be without Stevie? Michael Jackson? The Beatles?
Who wants to live a life without Beyonc? And would you really like
to be in a club that didnt play Tiwa Savage, Chameleone,
Diamond Platnumz? And if we embraced a total ban of art coming
from outside Kenya, why stop there? Why not ban everything that
wasnt local? Like technology. Ban the television, the cell phone, the
car, the computer. All innovation involves a certain amount of
borrowing. Youve got to start at a known to get to an unknown. Youll
hear the guitar lines of Kinshasa in the music of Stromae, Iyanya
and Davido; South African rhythms and guitar lines are the
signature of Paul Simons Graceland and Vampire Weekends
music. In researching this piece, I confirmed the similarity between
contemporary Naija music and traditional Coastal East African
Chakacha- a driving 12-8, triplet feel heavily reliant on a 3-2 clave
that is the signature of Afro-Cuban music. The Ragga beat behind
Flavours Nwa Baby is exactly the same as Chaka Demus and
Pliers Murder She Wrote, just at a different tempo, and the
melody of the former is borrowed from the 1930s recording of El
Manicero by Don Azpiazu Havana Casino Orchestra. Only
heaven knows where Don Azpiazu got his version.
9/5/2015 02:24
6 of 7
Is Kenya lagging behind in music? Our lawyers, bankers, brewers

can compete with any of their colleagues globally. A Kenyan long
distance runner need only beat his next-door neighbour to stand a
chance at being the best in the world recent culpability of doping
notwithstanding. Naija music is brazen. It is not timid or full of angst.
It walks into the club grabbing its crotch with its recreated sound of
old turned over on its head, with easy lines and catchy hooks
shotgunned by a thumping, ear-whomping, pulsating four-tothe-floor kick drum that grabs you, shoves a beer down your throat
and promises you that tonight you will get lucky. And it comes with
all its friends. When a Naija song plays, its charging at you through
the speakers riding on the reputations of all of Nigerian Highlife,
Fela, King Sunny Ade, Majek Fashek, and more recently
P-Square, 2face and Dbanj. Add to that the dizzying pace at which
they release new material and youve got a tsunami. Maybe Kenya
has suffered from not having an all-embracing identity genre that
helps artists ride on each others shoulders. Ive always been a
proponent of diversity, but it can be argued that theres not a single
Jamaican Reggae, Ragga or Dub artist whos not running on the
steam of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and their contemporaries,
wittingly or not. I mean when youre waiting for the starting gun at
the Boston Marathon, and the guy next to you is wearing a vest that
says Kenya, even before youve run an inch youre out of breath.
So when a group of Kenyan musicians march the streets of Nairobi
saying they want more airplay, what they mean is that they just want
more. Of everything. They want more access to great producers,
more policies that favour growth not through airplay quotas (who
wants to force appreciation?) but through education, more damn
money from airplay, more prosecution for content aggregators who
9/5/2015 02:24
7 of 7
dont remit royalties. More space not protectionism to be heard.

With the same care and attention that a farmer would pay to a
seedling. Theyre just taking it out on the Nigerians and Tanzanians
because right now they seem to be getting all the love. This
misdirected energy is not new. It would be better spent writing
songs, though. Songs that come out punching at your heart or your
dancing shoes.
Eric Wainaina is a writer, singer, songwriter and producer from
Nairobi, Kenya, whos just trying to figure stuff out. Follow him on
Twitter.
9/5/2015 02:24

Does Kenya Really Have A Naija Music Problem

Încărcat de

Informații document

Titlu original

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Does Kenya Really Have A Naija Music Problem

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Does Kenya Really Have A Naija Music Problem?