“Kakuma’s music is like the cradle of humanity all over again!”
– Eric Wainaina, leading Kenyan musical artist
At almost three decades old and with over 160,000 inhabitants, Kakuma Refugee Camp is one of the Africa’s – and the world’s – oldest and largest refugee camps, one that has become synonymous with the horrors of war and the forced migrations it has produced.
The myriad of countries and cultures makeup Kakuma’s population have led everyone from camp residents to the head of Kenya’s security service there to describe it as “another country” — neither part of Kenya nor completely separate nor resembling any one of the countries from which people have fled. Is truly a unique place with a unique identity and heritage.
But Kakuma also holds one of Africa’s least known treasures, one with the potential to improve the lives of residents of the Camp while also putting Kakuma on the global map for something other than the well-documented plight of its refugee inhabitants. That treasure is the numerous musicians from a dozen countries that live in the camp and routinely play together, creating previously unheard hybrids of Congolese, South Sudanese, Sudanese, Burundian, Ugandan, Somalian, Ethiopian, and other traditions, instruments, sounds and styles.
Till now these gatherings have been the stuff of myth and legend traded among a few musicians, mostly in the world music scene, who’ve heard stories from Kenyan artists and producers who’ve visited the camp, or in rarer cases, have visited themselves and interacted with the musicians. As Kenyan music star Eric Wainaina exclaimed when first learning of the musical environment, referring to Turkana’s well-known location as the birthplace of humanity, “It’s like the cradle of humanity again.”
We believe this treasure trove of musical experiences and styles has the potential to create a “sound” to rival the great sounds of the past—Muscle Shoals, Motown, Accra, Mogadishu, and other locations where in the last fifty years musicians from different walks of life have come together to create the foundation for a distinct musical style that went on to define their era.
What makes the story of Kakuma’s amazing musicians more surprising is that they’ve been there in plain sight all this time; their “massive talents” – in the words of Smart Djaba, a refugee from the Congo who’s one of Kakuma’s most celebrated singer – ignored by artists, producers, films crews and other visitors who assume African music today can only mean either hiphop or “traditional music” and don’t understand the musical evolution that is occurring right under their ears.
As Kenyan music star Eric Wainaina exclaimed when first learning of the musical environment, referring to Turkana’s well-known location as the birthplace of humanity, “It’s like the cradle of humanity again.”
Yet the inhabitants of Kakuma, many of whom have lived there for decades, or are 2nd and even 3rd generation residents, rarely have a voice in their own future.
The Beginnings of a Sound
In the last half decade, local artists like singer Smart Djaba and a few other intrepid artists and producers have gone out of their way to record and showcase the talents of the singers, rappers and dancers from Kakuma. In 2014, he organized a group called the Refugee Allstars, who recorded a song “Kakuma Rocks” with South Sudanese star Emmanuel Jal and Silvastone. The Nairobi-based artist Octopizzo has also visited Kakuma and organized a festival with local singers and rappers, as part of World Refugee Day in the camp in 2015. Since then a program, Kakuma Got Talent, was developed with funding from the Lutheran World Federation and Danish Church Aid as an initiative to promote youth talent in Kakuma, including categories for models, actors, singers, rappers, dancers and comedians. Smart Djaba has also organized a major talent show in the camp, which despite initial misgivings among Camp staff wound up being very successful. Finally, there have also been attempts to use basketball and soccer to demonstrate the high level of talent in the camp.
Various UN bodies have understood the importance and potential of music, up to a point. UNHCR has regularly sponsored music events, talent shows and training for artists, while UNESCO has even inscribed some of the traditional instruments sought by musicians in its list of “intangible cultural heritage of humanity.” What is missing in all these attempts to support the Camp’s residents is both a recognition of the important of traditional instruments from their home countries to establishing a vibrant and sustainable culture in the Camp, and any focus on helping in a systematic way the musicians who in fact, on a daily basis, are the lifeblood of culture in the camp—playing, performing and recording at church services, weddings and other celebrations, recording for singers and rappers, and generally offering a daily soundtrack through their regular ad hoc gatherings and jam sessions that provides a beautiful accompaniment to an often difficult existence. Despite their importance, they are simply left out and ignored by almost everyone as a group that deserves recognition and support.
Ultimately, we see encouraging the recovery, preservation and development of the musical heritage of Kakuma and other established refugee camps as a crucial aspect of the recognition by the UN, urban and other refugee planners that refugee camps like Kakuma should be treated not as temporary locations with no past or future, but rather as potential World Heritage Sites in their own right, and as long-term human—usually urban—settlements whose integration with the surrounding environment, societies and cultures are crucial to the health and even survival of both camp residents and the communities amidst whom they’ve been established. Kakuma Refugee Camp is, in the end, a “World Heritage Site” every bit as unique, historic and valuable as Rome and Paris, the Taj Mahal and Grand Canyon, or the Massai Mara and Victoria Falls and look forward to working with UNHCR, UNESCO, and arts and cultural organizations world-wide to help make the Kakuma project a staple of ongoing development efforts for refugee camps world-wide.
Kakuma 