The Sociolingual Disposition of the Emergent Deejay Afro Film Commentary in Kenya
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Date
2014
Authors
Kimani, G.
Mugubi, J.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Research Institute for Policy Development
Abstract
The Kenyan film scene has experienced a descending trajectory characterized by
dwindling fortunes in cinema theatres, leading to closure of famed theatres like Odeon
cinema, Nairobi cinema, Fox drive-in cinemas, and Globe cinema, among others, in
Nairobi and other major towns in Kenya. As the cinemas auditoriums were succumbing
to the culture of indifference to theatre-going in the 1990s, estate and village video shows
proliferated in the densely populated low-income urban and peri-urban areas in Kenya.
Typified by screenings of popular Hollywood and Hong Kong action films, the video
shows filled their benches by featuring commentators, popularly known as video-show
deejays, the most renown being ‘Deejay Afro’. The popularity of ‘Deejay Afro’ cannot be
overstated and to date his performances still endear a large section of the Kenyan
audience in rural and peri-urban areas. So, what exactly about this modern film
commentator endears him to his audience and what are the distinctive qualities of his
art? These are the questions that this paper seeks to address, drawing parallels with the
Japanese ‘Benshi’ as described by Don Kirihara and Donald Richie inter alia, and
guided by the aesthetic theories of Theodor Adorno, and the Frankfurt school
perspectives of spectatorship. The analysis is based on a ‘Deejay Afro’ commentary
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Citation
International Journal of Art and Art History Vol. 2, No. 1; March 2014