Tom Mboya
Biographic Data
| ID | 4050348 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tom Mboya |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tom |
| FAMILY NAME | Mboya |
| SIGNATURE | MBOYA T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Moi University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2234-9716 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 26 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1956 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Congolese Music and the Kenyan Nation, 1963–1993
“Listen to Music in Times of Trouble”
This narrative account of the working career of Kenyan popular “live band” musician Awillo Mike in 2020 explores the contribution that musicking makes to social resilience. Ethnographic and literary methods were used to construct a story of one artist’s struggles to survive and sustain his music career during the COVID-19 pandemic—a story that demonstrates how musicking is an everyday entertainment practice that fulfils deep psychological needs, …
‘Back Home in the States’
This paper is a reading of the Kenyan psychological drama, Chains of Junkdom by Okiya Omtata Okoiti as an artistic contribution to a long-running debate on the definition of home in postcolonial Kenya. The two major positions in the debate are shown to have their origins in colonialism. The first position holds that a home is a house that is located in a territory deemed to belong to the ethnic community of the house owner, and is a locus of the …
From ‘The World as a Place’ to ‘Cultures of (Un)homing in a Contemporary World’
Music is Sweet When Your Praises Are Sung
This paper interrogates the asymmetry that is inscribed in the patron–client paradigm often used to describe the relationship between artists and consumers of art who, also, promote it in Kenya. It does this by latching onto and inspecting a practice where members of the audience gave cash to musicians while making song requests in the “live band” music performances of Ja-Mnazi Afrika at The Noble Hotel in Eldoret town. The practice is shown to b…
I have a story about Nairobi
This paper reads the popular song “Khandpaka” by the Kenyan music group Awillo Mike and Ja-Mnazi Afrika (2009) as a rhetorical act that argued for the inclusion of ethnicity, rather than its exclusion, in the imagination of the nation in the Kenya of the first decade of the twenty-first century. The paper’s focus is on the ironical presentation of a humorous story in “Khandpaka.” The amusing narrative in “Khandpaka” – the song title is the Englis…
Rapping with a Forked Tongue, Code-switching and the Tribalized Kenya of the end of the Twentieth Century in ‘Otongolo Tyme’ by Poxi Presha
In this article politics is argued to be an important driver of the practice of codeswitching in the kinds of texts — like popular music texts — that are produced for extensive circulation within the African post-colony. The argument is anchored in a discourse analysis of the Kenyan hip-hop track ‘Otongolo Tyme’ by Poxi Presha. There is heavy code-switching both in the verbal and the musical components of ‘Otongolo Tyme’. By closely examining the…
Ethnicity and the brokerage of Kenyan popular music
This article extends the description of the popular music industries as sites in which ethnic identities were constructed and consolidated in early twenty-first century Kenya. The interest is in the brokerage of the music. The focus is on the categorization of the song ‘Riziki’ by the Kenyan popular music band Ja-Mnazi Afrika. ‘Riziki’ was first recorded in 2005 and continued to be a ‘hit’ through 2008. Over year 2008, a number of institutions th…
Living off the Stony Farm
This article reads diasporic consciousness in the song “Shamba la Mawe” by the Kenyan artiste, Awilo Mike. It takes as its entry point for the reading the fact that Peter, the speaker in the song's lyrics, a Kenyan migrant in Europe, addresses two groups of Kenyans separately and together. The first of the two groups lives in Kenya, the second lives in Europe. The notion that forms of address may reveal information about the person of the address…
My voice is nowadays known’, Okatch Biggy, Benga and Luo identity in the 1990s
This article discusses Okatch Biggy's practice of benga. The article defines the music form called benga. On the foundation of that description, the article describes Biggy's ‘voice’, his music style, and highlights the innovations that the artiste has brought to benga. The article argues that through this style, and quite apart from the verbal content of the music (which the article does not discuss), Biggy effectively communicated with and cons…
Freedom and After
The Future of Kenya
Journal Article The Future of Kenya Get access Tom Mboya, M.P. Tom Mboya, M.P. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 63, Issue 250, January 1964, Pages 6–12, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a095165 Published: 01 January 1964
Our Revolutionary Tradition
Essay| December 01 1956 Our Revolutionary Tradition: An African View Tom Mboya Tom Mboya General Secretary of the Kenya Federation of Labor Tom Mboya, who has just returned to Kenya after a speaking tour throughout the United States, was born in Kenya’s White Highlands. He received his elementary and secondary education at Catholic Mission schools there. He is General Secretary of the Kenya Federation of Labor and of his own union, the Kenya Loca…
Freedom and After
Music is Sweet When Your Praises Are Sung
This paper interrogates the asymmetry that is inscribed in the patron–client paradigm often used to describe the relationship between artists and consumers of art who, also, promote it in Kenya. It does this by latching onto and inspecting a practice where members of the audience gave cash to musicians while making song requests in the “live band” music performances of Ja-Mnazi Afrika at The Noble Hotel in Eldoret town. The practice is shown to b…
Ethnicity and the brokerage of Kenyan popular music
This article extends the description of the popular music industries as sites in which ethnic identities were constructed and consolidated in early twenty-first century Kenya. The interest is in the brokerage of the music. The focus is on the categorization of the song ‘Riziki’ by the Kenyan popular music band Ja-Mnazi Afrika. ‘Riziki’ was first recorded in 2005 and continued to be a ‘hit’ through 2008. Over year 2008, a number of institutions th…
Our Revolutionary Tradition
Essay| December 01 1956 Our Revolutionary Tradition: An African View Tom Mboya Tom Mboya General Secretary of the Kenya Federation of Labor Tom Mboya, who has just returned to Kenya after a speaking tour throughout the United States, was born in Kenya’s White Highlands. He received his elementary and secondary education at Catholic Mission schools there. He is General Secretary of the Kenya Federation of Labor and of his own union, the Kenya Loca…
The Future of Kenya
Journal Article The Future of Kenya Get access Tom Mboya, M.P. Tom Mboya, M.P. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 63, Issue 250, January 1964, Pages 6–12, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a095165 Published: 01 January 1964
Freedom and After
My voice is nowadays known’, Okatch Biggy, Benga and Luo identity in the 1990s
This article discusses Okatch Biggy's practice of benga. The article defines the music form called benga. On the foundation of that description, the article describes Biggy's ‘voice’, his music style, and highlights the innovations that the artiste has brought to benga. The article argues that through this style, and quite apart from the verbal content of the music (which the article does not discuss), Biggy effectively communicated with and cons…
Living off the Stony Farm
This article reads diasporic consciousness in the song “Shamba la Mawe” by the Kenyan artiste, Awilo Mike. It takes as its entry point for the reading the fact that Peter, the speaker in the song's lyrics, a Kenyan migrant in Europe, addresses two groups of Kenyans separately and together. The first of the two groups lives in Kenya, the second lives in Europe. The notion that forms of address may reveal information about the person of the address…
Ethnicity and the brokerage of Kenyan popular music
This article extends the description of the popular music industries as sites in which ethnic identities were constructed and consolidated in early twenty-first century Kenya. The interest is in the brokerage of the music. The focus is on the categorization of the song ‘Riziki’ by the Kenyan popular music band Ja-Mnazi Afrika. ‘Riziki’ was first recorded in 2005 and continued to be a ‘hit’ through 2008. Over year 2008, a number of institutions th…
Rapping with a Forked Tongue, Code-switching and the Tribalized Kenya of the end of the Twentieth Century in ‘Otongolo Tyme’ by Poxi Presha
In this article politics is argued to be an important driver of the practice of codeswitching in the kinds of texts — like popular music texts — that are produced for extensive circulation within the African post-colony. The argument is anchored in a discourse analysis of the Kenyan hip-hop track ‘Otongolo Tyme’ by Poxi Presha. There is heavy code-switching both in the verbal and the musical components of ‘Otongolo Tyme’. By closely examining the…
I have a story about Nairobi
This paper reads the popular song “Khandpaka” by the Kenyan music group Awillo Mike and Ja-Mnazi Afrika (2009) as a rhetorical act that argued for the inclusion of ethnicity, rather than its exclusion, in the imagination of the nation in the Kenya of the first decade of the twenty-first century. The paper’s focus is on the ironical presentation of a humorous story in “Khandpaka.” The amusing narrative in “Khandpaka” – the song title is the Englis…
Music is Sweet When Your Praises Are Sung
This paper interrogates the asymmetry that is inscribed in the patron–client paradigm often used to describe the relationship between artists and consumers of art who, also, promote it in Kenya. It does this by latching onto and inspecting a practice where members of the audience gave cash to musicians while making song requests in the “live band” music performances of Ja-Mnazi Afrika at The Noble Hotel in Eldoret town. The practice is shown to b…
‘Back Home in the States’
This paper is a reading of the Kenyan psychological drama, Chains of Junkdom by Okiya Omtata Okoiti as an artistic contribution to a long-running debate on the definition of home in postcolonial Kenya. The two major positions in the debate are shown to have their origins in colonialism. The first position holds that a home is a house that is located in a territory deemed to belong to the ethnic community of the house owner, and is a locus of the …
From ‘The World as a Place’ to ‘Cultures of (Un)homing in a Contemporary World’
Congolese Music and the Kenyan Nation, 1963–1993
“Listen to Music in Times of Trouble”
This narrative account of the working career of Kenyan popular “live band” musician Awillo Mike in 2020 explores the contribution that musicking makes to social resilience. Ethnographic and literary methods were used to construct a story of one artist’s struggles to survive and sustain his music career during the COVID-19 pandemic—a story that demonstrates how musicking is an everyday entertainment practice that fulfils deep psychological needs, …
Sociology (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Art (7 works) · African history and culture studies (5 works) · Anthropology (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Music History and Culture (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Ethnic group (4 works) · History (4 works)