Congolese Music and the Kenyan Nation, 1963–1993

Abstract

This paper is an intervention in the discussion on the making of theKenyan nation. The interest is in the role of popular music, and thefocus is on Congolese music. The notion, comprehensivelyexplained and illustrated by Moorman (2008), that music can (help)forge a nation is used as the theoretical illuminating torch in theexploration of information mainly mined from back copies of oneof Kenya’s two main national newspapers, the Nation (founded1958). Congolese music has been popularly embraced by Kenyansregardless of their ethnicity since the early 1960s. It was, for allintents and purposes, made a sound of the nation by both itscountry-wide success and its insertion into discourses of the nationin the country – and this despite the fact that the language it ismostly sung in, Lingala, is not spoken in Kenya, and the music’smakers are not Kenyan citizens. The appropriation of Congolesemusic in Kenya is read to point to a cosmopolitan understandingof the nation.