A Colonial Upbringing
Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, I started playing Western classical piano from the age of six and attended international school, where British English was how we had to speak and spell, and our essay questions could ask us to ‘describe what snow is like?’ even though it didn’t snow in our country. So, while my parents spoke Kikuyu (our tribal language) and English, the colonial tongue, I grew up rejecting the former in favour of the latter, because that’s what we were told was ‘correct’.* My grasp on Kiswahili, the country’s ‘unifying’/national language, is functional, but limited. And, while I loved attending live concerts where Suzanna Owiyo was performing, and would dance along to Oliver Mtukudzi or Papa Wemba on the radio, I only understood ‘composition’ as a process carried out by white men from Western countries, and ‘studying music’ to only be “official” if the curriculum was Eurocentric, focused on teaching about an unalterable canon of glorified European composers (Bach, Mozart and the bunch). (Even the way we learned about them was untrue of what their actual lives were — but that’s something for another day).
Studying Composition in the States
Recognising that class privilege allowed me into institutions where I could cultivate a small place in the contemporary-classical world (in a way that other artists from home may not have been able to afford), I arrived in New York as a small fish in a suddenly gigantic pond. The music composition program at NYU was framed through a similar white and Western lens as the one I’d received in Kenya. I loved the classes I was taking and was very grateful for the freedom the program gave us to write whatever felt right. However, in many of my theory-based and music history classes, I felt increasingly disconnected from what we had to learn. The classes that were solely focused on the study of the same roster of old, white composers were frustrating to me. They felt out of touch, unrelatable. But, these classes were mandatory, and knowing that I truly love composing, I acknowledged that they were just a stop on the journey. Nonetheless, I loved and appreciated my time in college. Many of my classes had, and continue to have, a meaningful impact on me. But I think it’s when you see, for instance, that there are French people who go to study music and learn mostly about Couperin and Debussy (for instance) that you realise some people have had the privilege of experiencing the feeling of learning about themselves and the history of their culture during their entire educational experience. Over time, I began to suspect that this idea of what a musical ‘foundation’ should look like was subjective and in favour of the coloniser’s story. To say that learning Mozart and the such is a ‘necessary’ part of a composer’s education is to enable an environment where white supremacy can thrive. Black people all over the world have been creating groundbreaking music for years, pulling from a foundation specific to our own knowledge, culture and environment. Once this clicked, I was suddenly itching, needing to know more about the art and stories of home. I found myself wanting a similarly consolidated and tangible understanding of music in my culture — in a philosophical & spiritual sense; in the context of its histories and function in both pre- and post-colonial societies; as well as in a music-theoretical way.
Finding Out How to Find Out
However, it is no surprise that there are limited resources surrounding the scholarship/education of non-Western music. The coloniser’s goal to erase African traditions resulted in the destruction and altering of thousands of years of culture that had been passed down through generations; and now, of the resources available, many if not most are written through colonial eyes. At NYU, I only found one class on African music, and just as I was about to sign up for it, it was made unavailable. (The funny thing is that in this day and age, white composers are heavily taking from Black and African musical traditions to bring in “new” language into their music. And they are strongly rewarded for it, while the creators of these musical languages are not — perhaps a post for another day). It felt like a disheartening start.
That’s when I realised that I’d need to take matters into my own hands: I began to seek out, both formally and informally, ways to deepen my understanding of (East) African musical traditions, both traditional and contemporary. I’ve been reading tons and tons of material on African music (current read: Cameroonian composer Francis Bebey’s artist manifesto, “African Music: A People’s Art”). I’ve been watching documentaries and videos, such as those by Kenya’s Ketebul Music, to understand more about the music of where I come from. Furthermore, I’ve been autodidactically learning the mbira, an instrument most widely associated with Zimbabwe, but that also sees itself in various and diverse iterations all over the African continent: the likembe in Congo, the sanza in Cameroon, or the akogo in Uganda. In Kenya, it’s called the kadongo or kalimba. Learning the instrument (I have 3 different kinds!) has allowed me to connect, in a spiritually meaningful way, my musical practice to home. I am also finding myself thinking through and applying African artistic philosophies in my compositional process. One of the most beautiful things about going deeper and deeper into this journey of (re)discovery is that I’m suddenly finding others who are just as passionate & dedicated to documenting and preserving our music. I recently connected with a friend who writes a blog, Wer Jokenya, that is focused the documentation of Kenyan music; and I further connected with Edewede Oriwoh, a Nigerian composer who created an online database of composers from the African continent (and hosts a video series interviewing them!). So— while there are many gaps in our history that can no longer be filled, I am humbled to find myself a part of a ‘team’ of Africans pouring in time and energy into bringing to light our art and stories, with the goal of making them accessible to its own people.
WHO I AM AS AN ARTIST TODAY (AND THE ARTIST I WANT TO BE in THE FUTURE)
The music I create feels like it can’t settle in any one genre. This is because of the myriad of influences that I have absorbed through time, and I don’t think I’d have it any other way. I often say that I have an ‘ever-growing’ compositional voice: my Western classical training guides me still; but from growing up in the African church to bopping to African tunes on the radio, I gained a harmonic and rhythmic voice shaped by Africa. And that I am always casually listening to pop, rock, indie and jazz music also reflects in the music that I write. But at its core, I almost always look towards home – be it my family, the natural environment, our languages and literature, my Blackness and womanhood, our musical traditions – to propel the ideas and themes that I explore in my work, as doing so has allowed me avenue into re-discovery of my history. My theoretical and visceral understanding of music from home is blooming, leading me on a path where my compositional voice aligns more and more with my spirit and my roots. My artist statement will thereby always and ever echo this: it is my utmost hope that the work I create now and in the future highlights and contributes to the preservation of African stories, especially in a way that honours and accurately represents our joy, struggle, labour, spirit, relationships, and lives.
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*the opening lines were lifted from an essay I penned in 2019, ‘A Child of Various Tongues’, which was published on So-to-Speak Journal’s limited series on Language and Intersectionality. Read the full essay here!
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