KENYA'S PROTEST MOVEMENT IS CREATING SOME RADICAL NEW MUSIC

In the summer of 2024, protests in Kenya against an unpopular tax-raising proposal led to at least 60 deaths, mostly at the hands of police, according to a local watchdog group.

- By Mankaprr Conteh

Undeterred, scores of people took to the streets again this summer to mark the one-year anniversary of the initial mobilization and decry persistent police brutality, corruption, and a prolonged cost-of-living crisis. Just as this recent wave of protests was receding, leaving behind deep concern and uncertainty, one of the country's most beloved bands – Just a Band – was staging a reunion at a party celebrating analytical webzine Africa Is a Country's first print anthology. Fittingly, that issue is all about the past 15 years of protest on the continent.

Blending dance, hip-hop, funk, and more, the experimental outfit Just a Band, and their leader, Blinky Bill, have often had political undertones, as heard on their 2009 track “Ha-He.” With a music video often credited as the country's first viral one, some of “Ha-He” took aim at the Kenyan establishment. “There’s a part of the song where it says [in Swahili], loosely translated, ‘The government doesn’t care.’ So, for me, I’d rather get myself a really good dog for protection,” Bill tells me.