Yelling at God over a shopping list

There has to be a better way of containing runaway poverty than these songs, which are inspired by greed, not creed. ILLUSTRATION| JOHN NYAGA

What you need to know:

  • Today, two essential traits mark the content of gospel songs — the poetry of violent metaphors and the base prose that worships material things.
  • Size 8’s Mateke (kicks) is a good example of the former. Her message is that the Lord kicked the devil (read demon of desire) and freed our souls.
  • She confesses to having felt dejected because she did not have the cars and money that people thought she had. Turning her life to the Lord eased that ache.

Why do so many so-called gospel songs these days, make material demands on God? Doesn’t anyone pray for spiritual things — like patience, love and healing — anymore? Why must an omnipotent, all-knowing God be yelled at over a shopping list?

Christian music has travelled a remarkable journey since 1929, when European missionaries were struggling to enforce the gospel through a variety of ways.

One method entailed dangling the goodies of literacy at converts. Another method — the stick rather than carrot — clamped down on traditional ethnic rituals like female circumcision and banned seductive local dances like muthirigu.

Female circumcision was not banned because of its medical dangers. Neither did its prohibition cite from the Holy Bible a specific verse that abhors the practice.

This prohibition, just like the 1930 ban on muthirigu, was a matter of instilling new cultural practices to set the athomi (educated elite) apart from ethnic beliefs.

Flash-forward to 2015 and gospel music is pouring out of every orifice in the republic. It is to be heard every day and night of the week. Not just on radio and television but also, in public transport vehicles, markets, hotel lobbies, elevators, malls, cellphone ringtones and dance clubs. There is no escape from this gospel invasion. Along with it comes the diffusion of prayers into virtually every physical space in the republic.

Gone are the days when prayers and songs of worship were limited to Sunday mornings and the four walls of the church. Today, prayer is so pervasive. It is inscribed as matatu art and it is announced on billboards advertising churches. It precedes every meeting of a chama, board, committee, even university senates.

It is the magnet that opens every political rally; it is the soundtrack that closes every seminar.

We have National Prayer Breakfasts organised by Parliament and attended by the country’s who’s who. We have three-day crusades attended by presidents and governors. The public staging of religious events has consumed this country to the point where one must be forgiven for asking: Aren’t the rights and privacy of some trampled when others profess their faith with such inconsiderate volume and inescapable visibility? 

PERVASIVE PRECENSE

Aside from its pervasive presence in spaces, gospel music has undergone a radical shift in its melodies and lyrics. In terms of melody, how is Piston’s Lingala ya Yesu or Daddy Owen’s Tobina (Kupe de Kalle) different from Awilo Longomba’s Coupe Bibamba?

When Henrie Mutuku sang Nakuhitaji (I need you), was there anything in her lyrics that identified the object of her desire as the Almighty? How can we be sure she was not pouring her smitten heart out for some irresistible “player” in the club?

In 2005, Esther Wahome’s Kuna Dawa (there’s a cure) became a chart-bursting radio hit. Soon, it found its way into pubs, where it was regularly toasted by drunkards.

They didn’t see the cure as Wahome’s invitation to come to church for salvation; they saw the cure as the bottles in their hands.

On New Year’s Eve 2009, no song ignited the dance floors all over the country more than Alan Aaron’s Kiriro (Our plea). Did all those who were raising their glasses to this funky collabo between Aaron, Kerah and Daddy Owen ponder the lyrics? Aaron prays that the Lord will grant a rebirth, a return to the innocence that preceded the fall in the Garden of Eden.

Kiriro is a fusion of the old billowing Akorino melodies in Kikuyu and the repetitive rhythms of reggae. On the dance floor, such innovative fusion carries the day and blurs the lyrics into a distant, secondary matter.

But in April 2013 when Jemimah Thiong’o performed her Mwenye Baraka hit at the inauguraton of the President, she was quick to alter her lyrics to suit the occasion. And so she sang, “akisema utakuwa rais, hakuna atakaye zuia”.

How have our idioms and rituals of worship changed? How did we get to this point where one can no longer distinguish between the sound of a Christian song and that of a pop anthem. Both the contributing factors and the defining moments in this journey into holy hip are worthy of study. 

The other pressing question is whether — now that prayers and songs of worship fill up every public space — Kenyans are a more pious and morally upright people today than they were in 1930. Perhaps this is best answered by our religious leaders.

Still, it is undeniable that there is plenty that we can glean from these gospel songs about the kind of people that we are and the things that we value. When DK Kwenye Beat (David Kilonzo) collaborated with Anto Neosoul (Anthony Mwangi) over Sari Sari, he was censured for mixing with secular artistes. Are we hypocrites or what?

All these gospel songs carry so many secular, pop elements, they even play in material places like banking halls and pubs!

The gospel can truly be put to some unforeseen uses. Back in 1952, freedom fighters rewrote the lyrics of the staid Christian tunes that were introduced by the missionaries and turned them into emotive songs of protest.

Today, two essential traits mark the content of gospel songs — the poetry of violent metaphors and the base prose that worships material things.

Size 8’s Mateke (kicks) is a good example of the former. Her message is that the Lord kicked the devil (read demon of desire) and freed our souls.

She confesses to having felt dejected because she did not have the cars and money that people thought she had. Turning her life to the Lord eased that ache.

If only Ben Githae would listen to Size 8! In Maya ni Mabataro (These are my needs), which boasts close to 500,000 YouTube hits, Githae sends the Lord his wish list — cars, good food, smart clothes, lavish houses, a good job.

What a literal interpretation of “ask and you will receive”! As the Almighty is ordered to fulfill these desires, there is fawning flattery in some words and naked entitlement in the tone.

We ban our children from listening to secular music on account of its swear words. Look at what they learn from these “praise” songs and their lust-filled music videos — how to covet their neighbour’s things and how to make ceaseless demands!

It seems that Pslam 23: 5 has inspired more contemporary gospel songs than any other verse. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows”.

Is every Kenyan so ceaselessly stalked by fierce enemies or do we instinctively read every situation through the blame-filled lenses of “nimeonewa” (I am being victimised)? If Christian discourse is our new mother tongue, it has certainly borrowed plenty from our old ethnic affiliations and their insecurities over exclusion.

Coveting your neighbour’s life is one (dangerous) way of dealing with the untenable inequalities in our society. But there has to be a better way of containing runaway poverty than these songs that are inspired by greed, not creed. They don’t give us the grammar to challenge the depravity that robs the majority of Kenyans of a better life, they legitimise the divide. 

We need to “straighten all crooked ways” and to find “a new direction”. This is the message in Emmy Kosgey’s kwaito-influenced song, Taunet Nelel (a new dawn). It needs practical implementation. Soon.

 

This article is adapted from Dr Joyce Nyairo‘s book, Kenya@50: Trends, Identities and the Politics of Belonging, which will be launched in Nairobi next month. [email protected]