The Incomplete Rebellion: Mau Mau Movement in Twenty-First-Century Kenyan Popular Culture

Abstract

past and contemporary Kenya is evoked to claim that Kenya, and Africa at large, is still going through the painful experiences of colonial oppression despite having attained flag freedom. It expresses disillusionment with current leaders, rather than a wish to return to the past. The Incomplete Rebellion: Mau Mau Movement in Twenty-First-Century Kenyan Popular Culture Evan Mwangi This paper concerns the simultaneous and contradictory conceptions of Kenyan history by rereading popular representations of the Mau Mau war of Kenyan independence and its postindependence consequences. It examines twenty-firstcentury evocations and appropriations of Mau Mau in relation to earlier discourses in literature and politics. It discovers that contemporary artists and citizens deploy references to MauMau outside of its historical context to address, in highly emotive language, contemporary problems in Kenya, such as runaway corruption and police brutality. It reads emergent artists and writers against the background of more dominant and canonical work to demonstrate the evolution of popular memory and the need to consider everyday, marginal, and liminal texts in a postcolonial context where the perspectives of ordinary people are excluded from official archives.

Love, Struggle, and Compromises: The Political Seriousness of Nairobi Underground Hip Hop

“…Here Timon wants listeners to know that her raps take up the struggle of the historically marginalized, reflecting Evan Mwangi’s comment that Kenya “is still going through the painful experiences of colonial oppression despite having attained flag freedom” (2010:98). Therefore, references to Mau Mau have been continually utilized because rappers recognize that the fight for freedom is ongoing (Koster 2013; Mose 2014; Mwangi 2010).…”

“…As Mickie Koster notes, many in underground Nairobi rap see themselves as creating a “Mau Mau consciousness” (2013:87). Rappers believe they continue the activism of the 1950s freedom fighters, creating music to “indicate that the objectives of the Mau Mau war have not been achieved” (Mwangi 2010:98). Artists who align with the Mau Mau connect also to other social justice movements for Africana peoples, using this as a means to establish their music’s legitimacy.…”

“…I have followed Nairobi underground rap since 2008. Much research has been done on the early pioneers of rap music, particularly with Ukoo Flani Mau Mau (Koster 2013; Mũngai 2008; Mwangi 2010). 5 These artists’ contributions have created a foundation from which underground rap has concretized.…”