Gospel music videos in the counter-memory of post-nation identity in Kenya

Abstract

Most countries in Africa are distinguished by the various culture groups enclosed within their geographical borders, and in how their governments have sought toestablish cohesion and unity in that diversity. Further distinctions are achieved in the ways populations have been integrated into the wider region and global world while still maintaining a unique local character. The arts (music, fine art, sculpture, architecture, drama, verbal arts), religion, language, and the mass media have been the principal fields where ideologies of unity and integration of plural cultural worlds, andlocalism in the global market or globalism in the locl market are played out. Music videos, one of the fastest growing entertainment and industrial products in Africa, are a principal contemporary terrain for the negotiation of distinctive identity.