“Renaissance” of Akamba Benga Music in Postcolonial Kenya

This article presents a discussion on the reappropriation of benga musical style by the Akamba musicians, in the postcolonial period in Kenya. It analyses how ideas of the benga genre spread from Nyanza Province in Western Kenya thanks to its diffusion through the increased mobility of the Luo benga music pioneers, and its popularity with Nairobi audiences. This paper argues that Akamba musicians, often groomed in the village religious choirs, were attracted to benga music, and began to adopt it, fusing it with elements of previous musical styles, in innovative ways which contributed to its renaissance in Machakos, Makueni and Kitui areas of the Ukambani region. Sources for this paper were based on in-depth interviews with selected Akamba benga musicians. The findings of this research establish that the process of transformative reappropriation of benga music in Ukambani took place in local settings, and suggests that the influence of foreign genres was not determining. Specifically, this discussion revisits the history of the benga music genre in Kenya, by adopting a micro-social history perspective to explain how this reappropriation was possible, and how it occurred.