The music and murals of Kenya’s youth protests

THE faces of slain protesters are painted on an alley wall in the Kenyan capital. Nearby, a community theater troupe acts out a random roadside arrest.

- RAEL OMBUOR

Over the past year, thousands of young Kenyans have marched in cities across the nation, protesting high taxes, corruption and police brutality. More than 100 protesters have been killed by security forces, according to rights groups, but they have not retreated. And their movement has inspired a new generation of Kenyan artists, who have championed the cause through music and murals, graffiti and spoken word. Running through their work is a consistent theme: Young people remain determined to change the status quo.

“Music throughout history has influenced social and political revolution,” said Njuki Githethwa, a Kenyan activist and scholar. What's happening now, he said, “is an awakening, a new thing coming into shape, and artists are centrally located.”

The musician

The so-called “Gen Z protests” began on June 25 of last year, when demonstrators furious over tax hikes and the rising cost of living stormed Parliament in Nairobi. In the chaos, the building caught fire.

The day produced one of the movement’s most memorable songs, “June 25th,” by popular Kenyan musician Henry Ohanga, better known as Octopizzo, who was there among the crowds. The music video, which has more than 750,000 views on YouTube, “was organic,” Ohanga said — combining footage from the protests with the voices of demonstrators and politicians dismissing them as “criminals” and foreign puppets.

“To see young people coming out to make a difference and to be heard after trying so many avenues ... was so powerful,” Ohanga said. “It was so special, | could not put it in my words.”

On the song’s YouTube page, he describes it as “a time capsule” and “a document of grief, resistance, and survival.”

The traveling theater

On a recent afternoon in eastern Nairobi, police officers were roughing up a motorbike taxi driver who had refused to give change to a passenger. A crowd started to gather; women and children looked out from their balconies.