The Conversation Weekly: Kenya at 60 -- the patriotic choral music used to present one version of history

Don’t Call Me Resilient

In this episode which we're running in full, host Gemma Ware speaks with Doseline Kiguru, a research associate in cultural and literary production in Africa at the University of Bristol in the UK, who has co-published research on the history of choral music and the role it plays in Kenyan national political culture. The episode originally aired on Dec. 11.

Kenya is marking 60 years since its independence from British colonial rule on December 12, 1963. Each year, the country celebrates the occasion with a national holiday, Jamhuri Day. And for much of the past 60 years, patriotic choral music has been a regular feature of those celebrations. In this episode, Gemma and Doseline explore how much one song can tell you about the politics of a new nation -- and who controls what gets remembered and what gets forgotten.

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Further reading:

• All episodes of TC Weekly

Further Research:

Kenya's 'patriotic' choral music has been used to embed a skewed version of history

Kenya at 60: the shameful truth about British colonial abuse and how it was covered up