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‘The Rise of Boys Bands’: The Regimentation and Commodification of Popular Music in the Kamba Community, 1960-2022

The extant literature on African songs and dances lends credence to music historicism which insists that popular African music ought to be understood in the context of its production and reception. However, this literature is overly silent on the commodification of popular African music in the post-colonial era. This is despite the fact that entrepreneurial motives of the performance of popular African music supplanted primordial social-cultural functions of songs and dances in Africa in the independence era.

Taking a case study of the commodification of popular music in the Kamba community in Kenya’s post-colony, this ongoing study will seek to investigate the successes or otherwise of the commercial production, distribution, and consumption of popular African music. This study proposes to use the theory of commodity fetishism as an analytical tool. The utility of this theory lies in its emphasis on the conversion of use values into exchange values of commodities and heralds a change in production relations.

The primary data for this study will soon be collected from in-depth interviews with the key actors in the local music industry such as the local benga artists, music producers, distributors and consumers among others. These participants will be purposely sampled because of the roles they play in the composition, production, distribution, and consumption of local music. The data collected from the field will be thematically analyzed, in an attempt to provide a detailed description of how commercial production of popular African Music influenced local economic development, within and beyond the local music industry.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
IFRA Nairobi (March 2, 2023). ‘The Rise of Boys Bands’: The Regimentation and Commodification of Popular Music in the Kamba Community, 1960-2022. IFRA Nairobi. Retrieved April 21, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/pw3c