A short video (20 minutes) documents a festival (and competition) held in Isibania, Kuria District, Kenya, in 2013. KiKuria to English translations were completed in 2020, and editing was completed in 2023. Dialogue is in KiSwahili, and performances are in KiKuria with English subtitles for both. The twenty-minute video is drawn from three days of raw multi-camera video and audio documentation. The location of the festival, Isibania, sits along the Kenya-Tanzania border adjacent to Isebania, located on the Tanzanian side. The Kuria people (AbaKurya) identify as an autonomous ethnic group occupying a fluid border region in Northern Tanzania and Southwestern Kenya. They identify as independent from nearby Bantu groups such as the Luo. However, there are similar cultural features, such as the widespread use of an eight-stringed plucked bowl yoke lute, which the Kuria call iritongo and the Luo call nyatiti. Performers traveled from throughout the KiKuria-speaking areas of Kenya and Tanzania, with busses provided to neighboring towns by the festival organizers (a Kenyan teacher and US scholar). A panel of judges, including local leaders and teachers, selected the best performers in several categories. The video gives particular focus to the winning performers in the poetry (chanting/praise-singing) category, Weise (Waisa) and her ibirandi (gourd shakers), and the music and dance ensemble category, Ntimaru Nyagetari (the Drivers’ Association of Ntimaru) led by Guragura and his son Riso (on the nyatiti).

In Decolonising the Mind, Thiong’o placed musicians of the post-colonial urban working class at the vanguard of decolonial processes, challenging scholars and writers to follow their lead:

“…singers pushed the languages to new limits, renewing and reinvigorating them by coining new words and new expressions, and in generally expanding their capacity to incorporate new happenings in Africa and the world.” (1981:23)

In 2019, Kenya’s Ministry of Education released new learning policies for Indigenous Languages developed by the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD). The new emphasis on learning outcomes tied to Indigenous Languages is, potentially, a significant step forward for sustaining cultural diversity in Kenya. However, unlike Thiong’o’s assessment forty years earlier, the KICD does not place a high value on the role of music in Indigenous Language learning. No references to “Music” appear in the 80-page document for Grade 5. “Singing” appears once on page 7 in section 1.1.2 Listening for Information: “Engage in a singing game on listening and responding to instructions to perform home activities.” Does music no longer have the same role in invigorating indigenous languages that it did forty years ago (as noted by Thiong’o)? Are household chores the only topic teachers sing about with their students? Based on site visits and interviews with teachers in coastal, central, and western Kenya, this paper assesses the extent to which the KICD’s recommended learning experiences and outcomes represent the actual practices and full potential of music, specifically singing, in the Indigenous Language curriculum.

“Ngurumo, or Feeding Goats Mangoes” by Nyokabi Kariũki began as a tape composition released in 2022 as part of peace places: kenyan memories, an extended play (EP) released by SA Recordings. Ngurumo means thunder in KiSwahili. Kariũki has since adapted the work for electroacoustic performance in Amsterdam (September 2022) and New York (March 2023) and for choir and cello ensemble in Nairobi (March 2023). In the final version, Kariũki “decenters” herself as a performer-composer (in the electroacoustic sense) by developing a version for Swahili-speaking singers and cellos without electronics for the Kenya International Cello Festival (p.c. 2023). This presentation will address all four versions of the work with (1) music-theoretical analysis of audio and symbolic data (scores) and (2) ethnographic analysis of interviews, correspondence, YouTube video descriptions, and blog posts by the composer and music journalists. The turn to ethnography might seem appropriate because of Kariũki’s Kenyan background. Indeed, Kenya is a country in which ethnicity plays a vital role in society. More importantly, I propose that experimental music demands an ethnographic approach to explore identities that inform the creation of music that is outside of norms established by canons, including European classical works, popular commercial recordings, and traditional or indigenous practices.