Translate this! Nairobi's hip hop scene asserts its African identity in the face of the bland imports of the global music industry

New Internationalist, April, 2001 by Adrian Cooper

Kenya's demand for music and television can't be met by under-funded local industries, so a flow of pop culture from the West, a culture of brands and products, fills the gap. It isn't a lack of talent that stops broadcasters from going home-grown: it's simply cheaper for broadcasters to buy the entrails of television from the West than it is to commission indigenous programme-makers or encourage a self-sustained music industry. Radio is judged for the speed it serves the latest Eminem, Will Smith or Britney Spears, not for introducing new, local artists. Record shops, magazine stalls and nightclubs are no different, their fodder shaped by the idea that current means playing catchup with the West.

Wayua Muli, a young Nairobi journalist says: `We're not quite sure where we belong, so our greatest influence right now is from the States and from Britain. That's what teaches who we should be.'

At the core of this cultural crossfire, Nairobi's blossoming hip hop scene is the most visible example of how young urbanites are latching on to the styles, symbols and language of imported music, television and film. Its genesis, during weekend jam sessions and talent contests in Nairobi's clubs, was simple mimicry: rappers were hailed for their skill as a parrot, not their ability to invent new rhymes and sounds. You had to look and act the part too: baggy jeans, sports shoes, baseball cap and an imitation American accent.

In response, a group of journalists, musicians and television producers in Nairobi is searching for ways to counter the biased flow of pop culture into Kenya.

`What we're trying to do is encourage the young people to maintain the culture and morality that Africa has,' says Jimmi Gathu, a television producer who has turned the spotlight on local talent through a string of music shows. This self-conscious attempt to create local icons for young Kenyans to identify with is paralleled by the recent launch of East Africa's first youth culture magazine PHAT! The title is an acronym of Pamoja Hip Afrika Tunawakilisha, Swahili for `Together we represent hip Africa'. `There's never been a Kenyan musician on the cover of any magazine in the world,' says Blaze, assistant editor of PHAT! `Talent in Kenya doesn't get a chance to be seen.' It hasn't proved easy for the likes of Jimmi Gathu and Blaze to convince financiers, venues and broadcasters to focus on new groups and music made in Kenya. `You'd literally have to pay DJs to play your records,' recalls Gathu from his own musician days.

Not until 1995, when artist Poxi Presha released a single Total Bala (Total Chaos) in Luo, one of Kenya's 44 ethnic dialects, did people realize the potential of rapping and singing in local languages. Total Bala `just hit the country like bushfire', says Bruce Odhiambo, the record's producer. `It crossed all language barriers and people realized they could do it in their mother tongue.' A realization that struck a chord with rappers from Nairobi's Eastlands slum estates, who formed the Mau Mau collective -- named after Kenya's freedom fighters from the 1950s.

Mau Mau group Kalamashaka's song Tafsiri Hii -- which means `translate this!' -- evoked life in the Nairobi slums and became a major hit. Another Luo act, Gidi Gidi Maji Maji, released their debut album earlier this year, Ismarwa (It's Ours).

Gidi Gidi Maji Maji researched the album by returning to their home province on the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria, where they collected Luo myths and sayings, instruments and sounds that defined what Tedd Josiah, the producer of Ismarwa, says was a re-statement of identity: `If you're an African there are certain cultures, certain traditions that you've grown up with -- our language, our musical styles -- and we have to actually go back to those things.'

The seeds that a new generation have scattered to define and encourage Kenyan culture are a direct response to the saturation of Western pop culture. Umbia, another track on a new compilation of Kenya's rising stars quotes the words of the late President Jomo Kenyatta: `Flare up as the flames of a fire. Consume the nation with your passion. Let the Kenyan culture sing loud and clear, echoing over the hills and ridges.'

Indymdia -- wired dissent

`Independent media has a life-work, a political project and purpose: to let the truth be known. This is more and more important in the globalization process. This truth becomes a knot of resistance against the lie. It is our only possibility to save the truth, to maintain it and distribute it, little by little, just as the books were saved in Fahrenheit 451 -- in which a group of people dedicated themselves to memorize books, to save them from being destroyed, so that the ideas would not be lost. This same way, independent media tries to save history: the present history -- saving it and trying to share it, so it will not disappear, moreover to distribute it to other places ...'

Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas, whose words inspired the Indymedia network.