Globalization has tended to give force to particular knowledges, privileging them while at the same time marginalizing and subverting other, often local, knowledges. An entirely understandable response from below has been to assert the primacy of local knowledge. It is often asserted that local knowledge has greater explanatory power, is more sensitive to context, and has local resonance. Following from this, it can be argued that local knowledge can constitute a form of resistance and empowerment. Within nation states there is a contestation over knowledge that pits states against citizens. States are themselves invested in creating knowledge as a way of legitimizing themselves. As such, nation states are also enemies of local knowledge that expresses dissonance and opposition to the inequalities over which they preside.

In this chapter, I examine the local knowledge produced by popular musicians in Kenya, as well as how they address local issues and express local concerns. What emerges is that this local knowledge is politically unstable, simultaneously mirroring and critiquing the excesses of greed and violence within the nation state. This it does by way of its own particular style, both musically and rhetorically. Intriguingly, its greatest oppositional power may be embodied in the music itself in ways that are quite difficult to pinpoint. In other words, even as this music-based knowledge acts as a catharsis, it also reminds its audiences of their global peripheralization, and reflects their collusion with that system. It is a local knowledge that speaks in many tongues and does not necessarily set the musicians or their audiences free.

Music and knowledge

One of the most visible spaces for the public production and expression of local knowledge in Kenya is popular music. Partly due to this, the music industry has also tended to be a perilous and intensely contested space. Dominant political culture, influenced by its relationship to private capital, has sought to determine and regulate the content of popular music, sometimes even violently.

The state has also intervened in the popular music industry’s processes of production, and sought to influence public ‘consumption’ of the ‘knowledge’ that emanates from its collective practices. Seen as simultaneously ‘critical’, ‘subversive’, ‘prophetic’, ‘explanatory’, ‘analytical’ and ‘entertaining’, popular musicians in Kenya are crucial shapers of their communities’ knowledge of themselves, and their relation to other sites of knowledge.