Archives of a pandemic: Song and the mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic in East Africa

Abstract

Music has always been a reservoir of African cultures and histories. Through music, we can trace the experiences of particular communities at specific moments in history. It has been used to entertain, educate, as well as preserve the histories of communities throughout East African societies. This paper discusses how music in the digital space has played a pivotal role in helping combat the COVID-19 pandemic and also document this moment in time. The paper considers the role of song in mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in East Africa and analyses the work of popular artists involved in this effort. The paper focuses on songs by leading East African artists such as Bobi Wine from Uganda, Mrisho Mpoto from Tanzania, and Salome Wairimu from Kenya. The paper argues that the songs by the said artists have played an important role in helping to mitigate and document the effects of the pandemic in the East African region. In constructing its arguments, the paper leans on critical reflections on the place of the artist in the society as espoused by Okot P’Bitek () and also theoretical postulations on African oral literature as argued by Ruth Finnegan (). The paper also considers critical approaches on the place of the arts in past pandemics in Africa by Gregory Barz and Judah M. Cohen (Eds) (2011). The paper concludes by noting that the online spaces and linguistic choices by the studied artists break physical boundaries to present a united front in battling the COVID-19 pandemic in East Africa. It also archives this moment.

Keywords

• artist
• archive
• covid-19
• digital space
• pandemic
• performance
• song