Benga tunes continue to define local pop culture

The popularity of Ohangla music has nearly replaced Benga tunes on live stage performances.

But Benga Live event at the Kenya National Theatre sought to inject fresh breath into the genre that defined Kenya’s pop culture in the 70s and 80s.

Revellers were taken back in time when Maurice Jarabe of Supper Victoria Band led the original Victoria Kings Band famed for Collela Mazee to belt out benga tunes.

The song Hera Mbese opened the stage with nostalgic tunes. The song recounts the joy of love at first sight, missed moments and opportunities.

“I look forward to seeing you gain as we recollect the good old days. Please get in touch even if by way of a letter,” goes the song just before the music hits the climax.

Drums rise to a crescendo as the guitars, two rhythms; one bass and one lead spice up the music. The audience is all nodding in response, some tapping on their laps and others singing along, and some already on their feet.

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Themes swing from love, finances and personal experiences. Of course praise of people of high standing in society enumerating their achievements and final endorsement for leadership were the icing on the cake of this first phase of Benga whose origin is from the Lake Victoria

Yet the evening wasn’t just about the relatively slow Luo benga, the Kamba’s with Kakai Kilonzo had injected real speed to Benga in the 70s through the Kilimambogo Brothers. And on this occasion Francis Kavuu Danger, an original member of the group was here to lead the the band with Mwanamke Mrembo and Kenya Mama Yangu, a solemn prayer for the nation.

Danger’s red tuxedo, white shirt, black long pants and the cowboy hat stayed true to the 1980s fashion and Kakai Kilonzo’s signature dress on stage.

Danger said if we do not uphold our heritage, then we might lose respect and true recognition from Westerners, who formed a bigger part of the audience in the evening.

“We continue to play these guitars and threat modern drum sets, and we have our own traditional equipment such as Nyatiti, Shiriri and Isikuti, why not incorporate them?” he posed.

His counterpart Jarabe was in agreement: “I think that is true, it can help attract the youth and avoid threats from genres like Ohangla.”

Benga’s allure spread like bushfire in the Harmattan from the shores of Lake Victoria into the central and eastern Kenya as well as Congolese and Tanzanian music.

According to the book Retracing Benga Music, by the early 1950s, pioneering Luo musicians like Obuondo Atwanga , John Odula, Oyugi Tobby, Ojwang Bathlomeyo, Owiti (Dewitts), the group Lango Obiero, John Lang’o, Olulo Ochenya and Olima Anditi were already recording songs, the latter producing the memorable track “Sabina.”

But it is the late John Ogara Odondi “Kaisa” who is regarded as one of the trail-blazing benga pioneers who spread it beyond local village confines, ingeniously shaped its style and nurtured a new crop of benga artistes.