Popular music, popular politics: Unbwogable and the idioms of freedom in Kenyan popular music

Nyairo, Joyce

doi:10.1093/afraf/adi012

Cited by 52 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…A number of scholars have already highlighted the various ways in which the postcolonial state − in contexts as diverse as Tanzania (Askew 2002;Edmondson 2007), Kenya (Nyairo and Ogude 2005), Democratic Republic of Congo (White 2008) and South Africa (Gunner 1994;) − has made attempts to appropriate musicians and performers as part of its own agenda. The previous section demonstrated that the state's attempt to support a new music genre occasionally backfired, subverted through the controversial lyrics of several 'urban grooves' songs.…”

Section: The Risky Nature Of Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Risky dialogues: the performative state and the nature of power in a postcolony

Willems

2015

Journal of African Cultural Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: The Risky Nature Of Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Risky dialogues: the performative state and the nature of power in a postcolony

Willems

2015

Journal of African Cultural Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, hip hop lyrics have been appropriated by political candidates as campaign slogans (Higgins 2009;Nyairo & Ogude 2005), and they have been used to help battle HIV/AIDS. Well-known hip hop artists have been encouraged to align their lyrics with messages about abstinence and anti-stigma currently being promoted by non-governmental organizations, institutions that are often the benefactors of such artists (Higgins 2013).…”

Section: Stylization On and Off The Stagementioning

confidence: 99%

Insults or Acts of Identity? The Role of Stylization in Multilingual Discourse

Higgins

2015

Multilingua

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article discusses how stylization sheds light on the role of authenticity as an increasingly relevant concept in sociolinguistics. Building on research on style, crossing, and mock language use, the article demonstrates how multilingual stylization provides speakers with a wider range of resources for navigating and negotiating borders and identities. Stylization is increasingly important since modernist linkages between language and the categories of nation and ethnicity still exert authority over how authenticity is ascribed. At the same time, transcultural flows offer speakers more opportunity to cross and challenge borders linguistically. When speakers begin to stylize one another's languages, however, the thorny issue of interpretation arises since stylized speech can be understood as mocking the speakers of the language being stylized. While studies of dialect stylization have explored these issues for over a decade, research on multilingual stylization is less developed. Accordingly, this special issue examines the role that authenticity plays in the production and interpretation of stylization. A continuum of stylization is presented that places mocking on one end (to refer to stylization that leads to insult) and style on the other (to represent acts of identity), while keeping open the possibility that all acts of stylization can ultimately be understood as acts of identity, given the right framings and stances expressed by the speakers.

show abstract

“…Comaroff and Comaroff 1993). Nyairo describes how the creative subculture in Nairobi is the realm par excellence for the appreciation of a multitude of identities, or modes of being, based on a mix of local and global qualities (Nyairo and Ogude 2005;Nyairo 2011). Groups such as these young professionals are cosmopolitans; their multi-…”

Section: Conclusion: "I Am African Iko Nini"mentioning

confidence: 99%

“I am African, iko nini”

Spronk

2014

Afr Diaspora

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In Nairobi, young urban professionals self-confidently position themselves as Africans, while they are simultaneously reproached for being ‘un-African’. I explore this economy of claims and how it relates to the way the lifestyles of young professionals become the focus of generational conflict. I follow how various actors use the notions African, Western, modern and traditional as reified concepts that comprise a discursive field of practices. Disentangling public debates and individual self-perceptions, it becomes clear that matters of cultural heritage, gerontocratic relations and intergenerational expectations, and shifts in gender and sexuality reflect a field of tension and ambivalence. Young urban professionals display a vibrant cosmopolitan way of being and are the visible results of social transformations that started with their grandparents.

show abstract

Popular music, popular politics: Unbwogable and the idioms of freedom in Kenyan popular music

Cited by 52 publications

References 13 publications

Risky dialogues: the performative state and the nature of power in a postcolony

Risky dialogues: the performative state and the nature of power in a postcolony

Insults or Acts of Identity? The Role of Stylization in Multilingual Discourse

“I am African, iko nini”

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About