Ambiguous relationships: youth, popular music and politics in contemporary Tanzania

Abstract

Bongo Flava music has helped to shape a generational identity of those Tanzanians who grew up in the era of liberalisation and multi-party politics. More importantly, this youthful musical genre has helped to increase the visibility and voiceability of youth in the Tanzanian public and thus at least indirectly encouraged the political participation of youth in political discourses. In this article I argue that it are not so much the critical lyrics of some of the songs which have helped achieve this, than the fact that the successes of Bongo Flava musicians have conveyed self-consciousness to young people who experience that they can achieve more than hitherto thought. In this sense Bongo Flava has helped provide the background for the emergence of young, charismatic personalities such as Amina Chifupa and Zitto Kabwe who became Members of Parliament after the elections in 2005. They have started to challenge the conventional, hierarchical ways of Tanzanian politics which used to be dominated by the older generation. The article further outlines how young “underground” musicians perceive contemporary Tanzanian politics and how this influences their own strategies in musical production.

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