Sex, Music, and the City in a Globalized East Africa

Extract

One of the first things i noticed on landing in my hometown of nairobi, kenya, for summer vacation this year was the continued proliferation of new-style music that undermines traditional ties with the solid rural identities seen previously as quintessential manifestations of patriotism and African racial pride. Radios in duty-free shops at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport were tuned to various FM stations, which issued beats that were a cross between Western hip-hop and traditional village music. Notable were the songs' calls for dissolving the boundaries between East African countries—namely, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.