It would be absurd to think a music genre\u2019s existence is validated by fans\u2019 hype. While I would argue that puffery is necessary, it all comes down to the key players: in this case, the artists who champion the sound. Over time, music evolves from main genres and like distributaries flowing away from the river, sub-genres crop up, assembling a hybrid sound. It\u2019s from hip-hop that we have trap, cloud rap, and crunk. In the same way, the Kenyan sound has evolved from Kapuka and Genge ruling the aughts, to the gengetone reign over the last three or four years on Kenyan airwaves.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The emergence of Drill has converted listeners not only in Kenya but all over Africa. Bumping to the monstrous hits of Black Sherif<\/a>, Drill\u2019s golden boy Yaw Tog or even the ominous synths of the Buruklyn Boyz<\/a>, the colossal shift has created a conversation around gengetone\u2019s durability. Speaking to youth around Nairobi town, it’s easy to decipher the listening culture of the city. We always move with what\u2019s hot. The 24-hour economy makes music consumers fast, impatient and unforgiving to redundant sounds. And so, Nairobi inhabitants have developed a prevalent one-liner, \u201cDrill killed gengetone<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The entertainment industry thrives under codependent conditions. Fun music goes best with a mass of people consuming intoxicants under the influence of thumping music.\u00a0Gengetone thrived with a single recipe, the dancehall-inspired beats and raunchy lyrics. Then, for two years while the world was languishing in the Covid-19 lockdowns, the entertainment industry experienced a huge blow. Apart from artists struggling to make ends meet, genre powerhouses like gengetone suffered deteriorating listenership due to its party-like structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n