Romancing the nation, effacing history: reading Kenya through patriotic choral music

Abstract

This article looks at music as one of the channels used by oppressive regimes to persuade the public to pledge loyalty to the nation and government of the day while at the same time blinding citizens from acknowledging the social, economic and political realities on the ground. Music composed, performed and accompanied by dance and visual images, and subsequently broadcast through different media channels, can be effective in achieving this mission. This article examines the song Tuishangilie Kenya (1984, revised 2012) as an example of the way music and performance in the Kenyan context become tools to efface substantial historical realities in order to project an imagined vision of a united nation. This article draws on Stuart Hall’s argument that music channelled through mass media can instil a sense of patriotism and national consciousness, and Nicholas Cook’s analysis of music in television commercials, to argue that the 2012 remaking of Tuishangilie Kenya provides a potential avenue for constructing a kind of double meaning, one overtly intended and one subverted at the end. Through an analysis of the song’s lyrical, musical and visual parameters I demonstrate how the audience is “hoodwinked” but how propaganda can backfire.