Extra Muros: The Benga Effect

Around 2 years ago, FLEE Project co-founder Alan Marzo made his way to Nairobi, Kenya. While here, he came across a plethora of art and undiscovered music. As a lover of both, his curiosity led him down a rabbit hole of research and he ended up with an expansive collection. In this adventure he found and fell in love with long forgotten Benga music in form of vinyls and tapes. 

Benga is a popular Kenyan genre of music that evolved between the 1940’s and 1960’s in Nairobi, that was played in the stylistic ways of the Luo Nyatiti and other influences such as the Kamba guitar and Cuban music. 

After Alan discovered this music, he shared his fascination with the other two founders of FLEE (Olivier Duport and Carl Åhnebrink) and they were equally as excited. The three already had an online radio show dubbed Extra Muros and with their new curiosities, decided to come up with an artist residency under the same name.

Flee Project is a platform that funtions as a publishing house and music label which facilitates exhibitions, live shows and artist residencies. Extra Muros found its way to Nairobi this year marking it as their first ever destination on the continent. It’s function is to inspire cultural exchange; in this case bringing European artists into East Africa. Its idea is to bring artists out of their comfort zones, to create in new spaces and around new people and environments, geographically and artistically. 

One of the inspired reasons they chose to bring their residency here this year was their introduction to and mingling with Benga music. The idea of fusing traditional sounds (Benga in this case) with contemporary electronic music was intriguing and all three founders were curious to see/hear what would come out of it. 

Around the same time, they wrote a book paying homage to that part of Kenyan culture in an attempt to understand it further, called “Benga - Kaleidoscope Kenya”  with the help of filmmaker Mbithi Masya.

Some of the selected artists of the residency from Europe had also heard about Benga music themselves - from counterparts and fellow music producers and were also equally as excited to interact with the genre some more.

Not to much surprise, they faced some criticism from media.

Here were some Europeans talking about somewhat traditional music with roots in Dholuo culture, who had not grown up around these people, nor understood what the music was all about, trying to morph their own ideas of what this culture could sound and look like. 

Alan mentions in his research that Benga was recognised more as a sub-urban sound that was less popular in Nairobi as a city compared to Rhumba music which was widely celebrated at the time. Benga songs had more of a country side sound and were therefore, to an extent, greatly overlooked. This here is where the music lovers like Alan and his counterparts come in. Any and almost all true music lovers will tell you that music is a  universal language. 

The founders of the project understood this. They knew that they could not speak from a traditionalist cultural view, but from an outsiders perspective and therefore decided to speak from the perspective of lovers of this unique, ‘hybrid’ sound.

They wanted to promote this sound and do it the right way. But  was taking steps towards re-appropriating Benga music considered cultural appropriation? Who is and isn’t allowed to legitimately talk about Benga and uphold its tradition? What truly is the meaning of cultural appropriation and are there any limits to it?

Benga - Kaleidoscope Kenya is in itself an enlightening 116 page book filled with lots of information and questions on culture, music and its colonisation, and with lots to query and refer to. Through it, I was able to understand the deeper meaning of what Extra Muros as a residency was aiming to do. Art for arts sake, inter-cultural exchange and creating new heights artistically. 

My biggest appreciation was their recognition on how colonization played a big role in how we as African Kenyans would react to three white men trying to control our culture, particularly Luo culture. Was it just another form of colonisation taking place? All artists and producer would get their pay and royalties for work done, but was the compensation enough?

The grip was on power and exclusivity. Culture cannot grow without community, communities cannot be built on isolated groups of people. Benga itself was/is a mix of different cultural sounds. It had Cuban influences and even a little bit of Kamba. Therefore what are the limits? Why not add some more influence to it? Who benefits, who doesn’t and how?

Some artists try not to touch what is deemed ‘sacred music’ to particular tribes, others compensate the originators of the sound, as others try their best to pay homage to these sounds artistically and even spiritually, then there are those who completely leave those cultures untouched and do not attempt the risk.

Benga is considered a hybrid genre of music, so why not push the hybridization of it in order for it to grow? If it can be done in the right way then why not do it? What are the right ways and who decides that?

The genre alone has influenced several workshops, exhibitions and residencies like this. It has called a need for cultural exchange in order to build bridges and networks, and therefore reach and create new limits - if not out of community, then the sheer thought for curiosity. What do you think?

Founders Alan Marzo, Olivier Duport and Carl Åhnebrink are continuing to push this conversation through their various platforms as the limits of culture, music and art continue to be transformed throughout the world right now.

You can find FLEE Project here.