ABSTRACT
Ghetto Radio, a Kenyan radio station that broadcasts out of the city of Nairobi, was set up in 2007. Its main target then was Nairobi’s slum dwelling, lower class and mostly unemployed youth. An important feature and trademark of Ghetto radio is its use of “Sheng” language in all programming. “Sheng” is a form of urban slung or lingua that draws from English, Kiswahili and several other local languages. “Sheng” represents a certain sense of creative genius and rebellion among Kenya’s heterogeneous urban youth. This language affords this group a means of expression away from mainstream discourse and attendant narratives. Over the last ten years, Ghetto FM’s popularity has grown, with listenership expanding among a largely youthful audience across the city of Nairobi and extending to other parts of the country where the radio station can be streamed live via the internet. Ghetto FM’s programming takes a unique character, with its contents mostly drawing from the livid experiences, struggles and circumstances of ordinary people, living in the less privileged sections of Kenya’s urban cities. More specifically, Ghetto radio’s policy deliberately privileges the voices of those in the informal sector, and, as its website also declares, “The guy close to the streets”. The radio station harnesses the creativity and bohemian inventiveness of young artists, the craziness, chaos, humour and vibrancy of modern Kenyan street life. In this context, this chapter examines Ghetto radio as an oppositional cultural–political space – a politicised space! This analysis is done against the theoretical standpoints espoused by the discourse on identity politics and language in contemporary society, as well as the emerging literature on hybridity and postmodernism.
