This paper was presented at an event titled “Conversations on The Tragedy of arts and Education in the era of Neoliberalism”
By Mwongela Kamencu (Monaja)
I was asked to speak about contemporary protest/liberation music under neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is an economic model which over the past fifty or so years has been imposed on “developing” countries particularly by governments of countries from the global north, hitherto the west, and multilateral agencies. These countries have also adopted this model albeit to a moderated degree at the expense of their masses’ welfare. The success of this imposition in “developing” countries could not have been possible without the tacit support of their ruling elites – although from time to time you have leaders like the late Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli who, to some degree, resisted this imposition. How does the model operate and why would it invite resistance from such leaders and the masses? The logic of the model is that market dynamics is the basis for any society’s progress – it’s an idea conceived and sold to other countries at the high noon of arrogant western universalism. Social services, meant for all and sundry, are to be bought and sold like goods in a market. The corollary of this is that the masses are compelled to struggle to survive while those classes that are at close proximity to capital can thrive while handing down their economic privilege from one generation to another. Inequality is thus perpetuated along with the misery of working class people. For all practical purposes neoliberalism is a zero sum game with its victims and its fewer beneficiaries. Here’s where protest/liberation music comes in – the music serves as vessel of the victims, the oppressed. I am persuaded to reframe the title protest/liberation music under neoliberalism to protest music AS A RESULT OF neoliberalism. Why? Neoliberalism provided the crucible under which contemporary protest music emerged. It is the struggles for survival at this point that inspired the creation of such music.
Kalamashaka’s hit song Tafsiri hii, came at a time when neoliberalism was taking root in the nineties. Rawbar, one of the group’s members in particular, articulated the injustices of neoliberalism in songs like Mungu wangu niokoe and Ni Wakati :
Ni Wakati:
Naongea kuhusu theory ya Uhuru ya 1963…
Siku tulienjoyiwa tuko free
Na philosophy yao kwa hii society,
Man eat man, man can’t plan,
White man society,
IMF SAPS ina demand
Na kama beggars bado si tunaendelea tu kustretch hands
Unaezakubali ama ukatae na uwe mjinga
Ni G7 countries zimeshikilia trigger…[1]
Mungu wangu Niokoe
..Imagine, Wangapi hawana school fees,
Wangapi hawana dish, Sababu hakuna peace,
Kwake yeye daily ni kucheka,
Mara yuko New York akitaka Jamaica,
Tulitoka kwenye udongo tukarudi kwenye udongo,
Yuko wapi Mobutu seseko[2]
Money became a prerequisite for the enjoyment of social services. Education, ideally a means of upward mobility, could only be accessed by those who had the privilege (money) to. In public universities where fees were unilaterally introduced in the early nineties, students from poor backgrounds dropped out. In the ensuing pushback, many students were sent down as the universities were closed for months. The institutions were virtually ungovernable. Outside these spaces which could only be accessed by a privileged few, the situation was no different. Veteran rapper Kitu Sewer describes how youth in Dandora, an informal settlement, coped with the times:
Growing in Dandora wakati yaani kila youth walikuwa rebellious sana kwa sababu ya ile economical situation. Unapata watu walikuwa wezi wezi sana criminal gangs, extortionists, matatu nini. Sa watu walikuwa wanapenda mziki ya kirebel – reggae hivi. Hiyo vibe ndio tumegrow nayo alafu hapo ndio tukaanza kuskia mayouth wameanza kufanya vitu kama Hip Hop hivi Kalamashaka tulikuwa tunawaskia tu tukienda chuo siku mat zilikuwa zinapiga what a bam bam. Eh? Back in the nineties. Sasa kuwa na ile inspiration tukaanza kuandika andika vitu. Juu ya hiyo inspiration ya kina kalamashaka Hardstone Ngunjiri finally tukaona kweli ghetto inaezakuwa represented[3].
The music made by the artistes spoke to those rebellious times. The crime, the corruption, the injustice and the oppression experienced in rural and urban areas. But it’s one thing to express the angst of a generation and another to articulate the mechanics of oppression responsible for that angst. Whereas other members of Kalamashaka – Kamaa and Johnny Vigeti – reminded Kenyans about the ugliness of the country’s underbelly, Rawbar prodigiously illuminated the mechanics of the neoliberal system which fueled the discontent of the nineties and early 2000s.The genius of his verses – particular his verse on Ni wakati – not only lies in their insightfulness but in their applicability twenty years down the line; the government has recently introduced another raft of structural adjustment policies under the scrutiny of the International Monetary Fund.
You’ve probably heard before that prophets are not recognized in their homelands. For their enlightening raps, Kalamashaka were blackballed – media stations looked them over and gave airplay to younger acts whose music was more “radio friendly.” The banal content of these “radio friendly” songs had some of us, then teenagers, thinking that life was all about going to clubs, drinking, love and sex. Songs which reflected the glossy veneer of Kenyan society while leaving out its dark underbelly which artistes such as Kalamashaka and K-south spoke of. Why did the mainstream media, then liberalized, look them over? Perhaps the owners of such were affiliated to the ruling elite and they couldn’t afford to present the society the ruling elite presided over as one afflicted by oppression. Perhaps highlighting societal ills would not have made their radio stations ideal platforms for corporations which sought to advertise their products. The common denominator in either of these cases was that protest/liberation music was not good for profit. Isn’t this the ethos of neo-liberalism – profit over anything and everything? Capital becomes the unspoken oil that greases the wheels of government in the provision of social services. Woe unto those who do not have it as they will not benefit from the social services – Eric Wainaina bemoaned this in his song nchi ya kitu kidogo. It would be naïve, however, to assume that the logic of neoliberalism would only be confined to the relations of state and society. It is a logic which defines relationships within society itself – from a stranger asking for consideration after showing another stranger directions that they sought to an artiste having to pay middlemen to have his song played on radio or in clubs or in matatus . It’s axiomatic that human beings are social beings and that acts of service between human beings hold the key to a stable society. But in a monetized – and now neoliberal age – money serves as the precondition for these acts of service. Human relationships are increasingly transactional. Mkono mtupu haulambwi[4] or in Kenyans on Twitter (#KOT) lingo hakuna mkate ngumu mbele ya chai[5].
Based on the previous paragraphs I have written, one can distinguish two dominant attitudes towards art and artistes. Art and artistes are nuisances that disturb consciences or inessential accessories that can promote the market called Kenya. The former threatens power while the latter serves it. These normative attitudes, both adversarial, are not necessarily new. What we as artistes in the neoliberal era are going through sits on top of some of the histories of performance art in neocolonial and colonial Kenya. This past serves as a foundation of the challenges we face in the present.
Among the Meru, singers in the present and in the past are/were disdainfully called Itharia, a word which comes from the verb tharia or spoil. In context, singers are typified as home wreckers or “spoilers” of marriages – institutions brought together by God. The tenor of this etymology jibes with the accounts I have heard from those who were children during the sunset years of colonialism. They were discouraged from singing Kimeru folk songs– they were considered demonic from the viewpoint of their “civilized” and Christianized seniors. Such practices were to be dispensed with. This was all part of the strategy in getting the people to feel that their beliefs and culture were inferior to those of the colonialists – what Ngugi wa Thiong’o calls a “cultural bomb” in decolonizing the mind. You can imagine how the children who imbibed these beliefs look upon their own children who chose music as their path. Moreover, a musician whose music’s content speaks to liberation and protest. To be an artiste is to be a deviant. To be an artiste who does protest/liberation music is to be a deviants’ deviant. This is the cultural foundation that the neoliberal era sits on top of. Art that is critical of the era’s ethos – profit for survival – is mostly shunned and the artistes behind such music are forced to seek alternative means of survival to support their craft.
Let us look at some of the options of support for such artistes and their art. Artistes could work with formal civil society organizations towards this direction. But Kenyan formal Civil Society is Kenyan Society writ large; the same normative attitudes towards artistes will usually be manifested within such circles. Artistes will serve as mere accessories for such organisations’ events; their presence is inessential. They are the “entertainment”, the ice breakers and the performers as everyone is going for a tea break. There’s a clear power dynamic at play here as the artiste does not have much of a choice but to accept such treatment – they are beholden to their benefactors. Allow me to borrow once again from my Kimeru language – “Nkea iti maruru ii metho akii ituneakia” – “A poor person has no anger, they can only squint their eyes.” Anything that is thrown to them should be accepted without question lest they get blacklisted thus denying them much needed opportunities for survival. I would like to emphasize that not all organizations have a cavalier attitude towards artistes – there are some organizations that really value the input of artists in the struggle.
Artistes’ survival aside, there’s a more significant yet insidious ramification that comes with this civil society organisation-artiste relationship. Most civil society organizations are of a liberal orientation. Their domain speaks to liberal-democratic tenets such as constitutionalism, rule of law, human rights, transparency and accountability. These tenets present the bureaucratic nature of the state, with its artificial class contradictions, as the ideal framework under which political transformation can be achieved. As such, the implied expectation on the artiste in such engagements is to use their art to advocate for political transformation within this framework thereby reinforcing it as a frame of reference. It takes ideological grounding, which most artistes do not have, to see the limits of this reformist project. Most from such engagements will make music which on the face of it may seem subversive but at its core, legitimizes the state and its oppressive nature – its inherent tendency to work for Kenya’s ruling elite and foreign capital. To the unwitting public, such songs will pass for protest music and will further validate and concretize the liberal political outlook the public has – that Kenya’s problems are not structural and can simply be solved within legal ambit provided by the constitution. Tumieni taratibu zilizopo[6].
Admittedly, people have to survive in these days and times. I don’t begrudge those who work in such spaces. Nevertheless, can we honestly pretend that foreign capital in form of NGO funding has no effect on cultural production as well as how they shape public opinion? That it isn’t pernicious? Doesn’t the same foreign capital go though foreign cultural institutes, which patronize our arts and academia consequently moderating our political opinions and blurring the line between oppressor and benefactor? Doesn’t it legitimize government’s failure in supporting cultural and knowledge production? In light of this failure, would one expect recipients of such patronage to view the countries of their benefactors in an unfavourable light? This patronage offers a lifeline to artistes and academics alike but as a result, these thinkers of our society – and it would be disingenuous of me to write about this as though I am not part of the problem – can barely call out this insidious form of control. Nowadays, imperialism looks like a matter of opinion, a construct rather than a concrete reality. We need our “foreign partners” even though we are well aware of our partners’ past and present complicity and/or participation in our oppression – their support for oppressive regimes, toppling pro-people regimes as well as the disproportionate profits they make when trading with our country. The artiste has to look the other way and bend their knee before coin to survive – maskini hana hasira ni macho tu anaezakaza.[7] Instead of asking why cultural producers are forced to prostrate themselves to earn a living, the artiste is forced to adapt and seize infinitesimal opportunities that come their way.
The other option for the artiste is to adopt one of neoliberalism’s favourite selling points – become an entrepreneur while doing music on the side. But this affects the dignity of his profession/occupation. Would a doctor or lawyer ply their trade on the side while subsisting on business?
The above survival strategies are mere adaptations to the neoliberal era. They don’t challenge neoliberalism, they reinforce it. Neoliberalism keeps most of us busy worrying about our survival and what to do about it. It thrives on our fears of survival. It would behoove the artiste, as a person of their times, to transcend the survival question. Instead of dwelling on the question “How am I going to survive?” the artiste should ask the existential questions “who am I and do I/we deserve better? If this system threatens humanity’s survival what can be done to change it?”
On an individual level the consultancies that are available to progressive artistes within civil society spaces are a necessary evil, at least for a while. Survival is critical despite the glaring contradictions. But this subsistence shouldn’t run in perpetuity. If one knows better – neoliberalism thrives on fears of survival – they should do better. Progressive artistes should unite and root themselves in progressively ideological movements diametrically opposed to neoliberalism. These movements will build alternative structures which seek to replace the existing oppressive structures.
These movements would serve as a link to the masses – distributing their music, organizing shows for the artistes as well as engagements with the masses through which artistes would get the necessary political education. For struggles against neoliberalism to be successful, progressive artistes must learn the mechanics of the oppressive system from the masses, assisted by the progressive movements, and articulate this as well as vistas of a new world in song. This transition would provide an environment conducive to the artiste to make liberation music rather than protest music. The latter would mean that the artistes alongside the masses have decisively taken charge of their reality and attempted to forge a new path. The former only expresses the disenchantment of the times which is insufficient for an overhaul of the existing structures of society.
[1] It’s time
I’m speaking about the theory of freedom in 1963,
The day we were deluded into believing we were free,
And their philosophy for this society,
Man eat man, man can’t plan,
White man society,
IMF is demanding that we institute SAPs Structural Adjustment Policies,
And like beggars we continue stretching out our hands,
You can accept or reject it and be foolish,
It’s the G7 countries that are holding the trigger…
[2] My God Save me
Think of how many people don’t have school fees,
How many don’t have food, because there is no peace,
For him he laughs daily,
One time he is in New York, when he wants he is in Jamaica,
We came from the soil and we’ll go back to the soil,
Where is Mobutu Seseseko…
[3] Growing up in Dandora at a time when every youth was very rebellious because of the economical situation, there were people who were thieves or part of criminal gangs, extortionists and there were matatus. People liked rebel music – like reggae. We grew up with that vibe and later on we began hearing that some youth like Kalamashaka were doing Hip Hop. We used to listen to them on our way to school, the days matatus used to play what a bam bam. Eh? Back in the nineties. With that inspiration we began writing rhymes. Because of the inspiration of people like Kalamashaka and Hardstone Ngunjiri we finally saw that the ghetto could be represented.
[4] An empty hand is not licked.
[5] There is no hard bread in the presence of tea.
[6] Use the procedures provided.
[7] A poor person has no anger, they can only squint their eyes.
