Ethnicity and the brokerage of Kenyan popular music: categorizing ‘Riziki’ by Ja-Mnazi Afrika

Abstract

This article extends the description of the popular music industries as sites in which ethnic identities were constructed and consolidated in early twenty-first century Kenya. The interest is in the brokerage of the music. The focus is on the categorization of the song ‘Riziki’ by the Kenyan popular music band Ja-Mnazi Afrika. ‘Riziki’ was first recorded in 2005 and continued to be a ‘hit’ through 2008. Over year 2008, a number of institutions that were engaged in popular music brokerage variously classified ‘Riziki’ as a western benga song, a Luo song, a Zilizopendwa (Golden Oldies) song, a rumba song, etc. On his part, the song's composer, Awillo Mike, described ‘Riziki’ as a rumba with a muffled zouk beat. The paper argues that the differing categorizations of ‘Riziki’ by brokers arose as a result of the factoring in of ethnicity as an element in the identification of the group in which to place the song, and that such ethnicity-sensitive classifications in turn served to (re)produce and/or normalize ethnic perceptions – and, by extension, helped to construct and consolidate ethnic identities – in early twenty-first century Kenya.