The De-Tribalized Generation: The East Africa Hip-Hop Artist

Kimingichi Wabende 1University of Nairobi, Department of Literature, Kenya 2Tom Mboya University College, Department of Literature, Kenya

Keywords: Youth, Identity, Kenya, East Africa, Urban Space, Hip Hop

The East African urban setting has produced a generation that lives within cultural

grey areas that have no clear ethnic leanings. The youth who inhabit these urban

spaces are caught in a world with forces that pull them in different directions. Their

domestic space consists of parents from an older generation with strong affiliation to

their ethnic groups, yet they still live among neighbors with different ethnic affiliation.

They also live in a country that calls for national unity but is daily bombarded with

ethnic rhetoric from politicians. The artists of this new generation are thus confronted

with problems unique to an environment faced with many ambiguities such as lack of

clear ethnic affiliations. They therefore seek to give identity and meaning to their

existence, and to define their world as urbanites against the background of their ethnic

origins. This paper examines the cosmopolitan thinking that has extended beyond

ethnic and national boundaries among Kenyan hip-hop musicians. It explores the

artistic demolition of ethnic and national boundaries by these hip-hop musicians.

APA Citation: Wabende, K., & Were, M. N. (2021). The De-Tribalized Generation: The East Africa Hip-Hop Artist. Ngano: The Journal of Eastern African Oral Literature, 2, 55-71.