As of last year, Nairobi\u2019s hot underbelly has propelled into orbit one of its most infamous offspring yet: Duma. The electronic black metal duo, who recently set Sonic Protest 2022\u2019s stage alight, are currently in the midst of their aptly named \u201cMogul Tour\u201d. Violent, deranged, and impulsive the Nyege Nyege Tapes duo are the ultra-concentrated chemical discharge from the current Kenyan metal scene. A profiled environment, whose emergence oscillated from colonial remains, global power outages and fire from the belly, carried by just a handful of activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s recall the history: Kenya freed itself from the tutelage of the British administration in 1963. The country, driven by its locomotive-city Nairobi, quickly abandoned the hopes of the radical independentists and converted to unbridled capitalism, an ideology directly inherited from the British colonists consisting of unequal distribution of land, great poverty, cronyism, incentives for foreign investments, while the British capital wealth remained well preserved… The Kenyan elite adopted the market economy to the detriment of the rebel ideals. Skyscrapers quickly sprang up in the capital city where business starts early in the morning. Despite its authoritarian one-party regime, established by pro-independence activist Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya would enjoy a certain social stability. In Nairobi, you would see many foreign artists investing the capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, as early as the 1960s, radio stations and phonographs fell for the sound of South African jazz and famous Congolese guitarists. From then on, the six-stringed instrument took center stage in the capital. A liberal, nocturnal, multilingual and party-infused city, Nairobi eagerly adopted and digested every musical avant-garde \u2013 be they Western or African. The power of radio has long been responsible for broadcasting the best of the world’s sounds throughout the country. A strong penchant for technological progress combined with the economic boom would provide the city with numerous recording studios, as well as music venues well equipped for live music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These Nairobi-based facilities attracted the singers of benga music<\/a> \u2013 a very popular genre in Kenya, which transposed to the guitar the way traditional nyatiti<\/em> harp was plucked, until its peak in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n