Making Meaning Out of Chaos: Identity Construction in Embarambamba’s Music Performances

This paper seeks to analyze Embarambamba's musical lyrics and explore his performances with the aim of answering the question: Why is Embarambamba's musical lyrics and performances popular among his audience and contemporaries, and yet the Kenyan authority at one time attempted to ban his music for being "obscene" and his performances "chaotic" and "outrageous"? This paper answers these questions by exploring Embarambamba's identity constructions. First, it analyzes the texts of his lyrics, which are composed on the premise of "obscenity" and sexual connotations. Secondly, the study explores the chaotic, outrageous, and unpredictable nature of his performances. Lastly, it examines his attire and dress code, which has earned him a reference to a "clown" and "madman". In its methodology, this study adopted a qualitative research design, which involved the interpretation and analysis of ten songs that have content related to this study. Observations of the audio and video performances of Embarambamba on YouTube were also made. The study benefits from ideas of T.S. Eliot and Harold Bloom. While Eliot, in his paper "Tradition and Individual Talent", observes that artists are judged against their predecessors, Harold Bloom, in his poetic theory, Anxiety of Influence, states that artists try to break away from their predecessors by imbibing new and unique characteristics to create originality in their art. Chaotic theory also guides this research in exploring the chaotic and unpredictable nature of Embarambamba's performances. This study is significant because it reveals the literary merits employed by Embarambamba in his music that endear him to his followers, thereby making him popular.