Ecomusicological Representation of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability in Selected Bongo Fleva Lyrics in Tanzania

This article critically explores how Bongo Fleva’s lyrics engage with environmental themes; and the interrelationship between nature and culture in the context of the Anthropocene. The data were purposively sampled from YouTube via content analysis, from which 50 Bongo Fleva songs were listened to, and only 10 environmentally-themed songs were analysed. Then, the selected songs were subjected to transcription (from oral to written form), translation (from Kiswahili into English), and close reading and textual analysis. The close reading of the selected songs focused on the employed aesthetic and rhetorical strategies, such as anthropomorphism, symbolism, antithesis, apocalyptic tones, solastalgia, rhetorical questions, repetition, and adages; with a specific lens on environmental concerns. The thematic analysis focused on climate change and sustainability themes emerging from the songs. The findings show that the songs convey landscapes, nonhuman agency, ecocatastrophes, eco-hesitation, people’s negligence, moral decay, political failure, and biodiversity loss as the themes; which in turn reveal the ecological awareness and displeasure at the abuse of nature among Bongo Fleva artists. In this context, they demonstrate the agency to influence public opinion, incite environmental policy dialogues, and support eco-activism in the country. Conclusively, the findings suggest that the analysed songs portray Bongo Fleva as an aesthetically and culturally grounded platform for ecological discourse; not antagonistic but rather collaborative and dialogic in addressing issues of environmental (in)justice and violence. Further studies could be on multimodal analysis of visual aesthetics in Bongo Fleva music videos to assess whether they reinforce or contradict the lyrical environmental message.