Kenya gets new benga book

Benga, A Kenyan Kaleidoscope was published by Bureau Sepän and features a collection of essays from contributors such as Noémie Desarzens from the University of Lausanne in Swizerland and music producer FlexFab, among others. Kenyans featured include film director Mbithi Masya and music producers KMRU and Gregg Tendwa. 

The various essays reference musicians affiliated to benga such as Ayrosh, Dan Aceda, Ken wa Maria, Dola Kabari and the late Joseph Kamarua, among others. 

Flee co-founder Alan Marzo says the the book highlights the evolution of benga, which is brought about by the emergence of diverse digital communities.

“Unlike other extremely important and brilliant anthologies on Kenyan music like Shades of Benga, the book is less about benga itself and more about the possible mutations the traditional genre faces in the digital age,” he told Music In Africa.

Marzo says the idea to publish the book was inspired by last year's Espace EEEEH! interactive music exhibition in Switzerland. He says the exhibition raised several questions about the genre, such as how to identify ways to document new hybrid genres that derive from benga.

“When we presented our previous work, Benga Music – A Signature Genre From Kenya, in Nairobi, we faced several criticisms about our approach. For certain Kenyans attached to traditional benga, revisiting those classics using different codes and production technics represented sacrilege. We got shook up by this challenging question and decided we would not only face it but take it as a departure point for a collaborative project taking the shape of this book,” Marzo said

Marzo's colleague and Flee co-founder Olivier Duport says the new release is meant to build on Benga Music – A Signature Genre From Kenya, a compilation that explores the diversity of the genre using original songs curated and edited by modern-day artists.

"This book is indeed the continuation of our previous work, which seeks to pacify the current debate in East Africa between purists and progressists, as we believe they both need one another," Duport said.

“We are definitely not and will never attempt to predict the future of benga music. In this collection of essays, the authors don’t take a moral stance on how benga should sound like in the future. But of course, some people are now speaking about new hybrid and electronic genres building on traditional benga, like electro-benga while others even introduced the notion of benga trap."

Order Benga, A Kenyan Kaleidoscope here.