Gender Dynamics in Selected Babukusu Popular Songs in Western Kenya

Abstract

This study explored how selected Babukusu popular songs encoded gender dynamics and how they shaped different forms of identity. The study employed the qualitative approach, informed by discourse and stylistic analysis. Through the purposive sampling, the study selected both oral texts and musicians for analysis. Purpose sampling was also employed in selecting key informants among the enthusiasts of the Babukusu popular music. The study employed textual analysis, which focuses on meaning ad representation. The study deployed play-stop-play technic in order to facilitate both transcription and translation to allow dissection of gender dynamics through textual exegesis and self-interpellation. The findings highlight that gender dynamics exist in the Babukusu popular songs. The popular songs consider wives as cunning, intelligent, caring and apple of the husband’s eye. On the other hand, men appear to be idlers, rumor mongers, traitorous, irresponsible, immoral, inhuman, malicious, social, generous but also inconsiderate. Furthermore, women are engendered as materialistic, immoral, pretentious, nagging but also sensitive, caring and secretive especially in times of war. Whereas the Babukusu are a patriarchal society, the females have acquired different identities that do not relegate them to the periphery. This therefore is a call to order for the community to revise its understanding of the female gender. This calls for further research within the community’s music to unravel emerging trends in the relationship between the two genders.