Kutuma Salamu on Public Service Radio and the Performance of Popular Culture: Voice of Kenya from the 1960s to the 1980s

Abstract

Radio is one of the mass media technologies that were readily absorbed in and adapted to the patterns of construction and integration of communities. Among non-elite Kenyans, radio was inserted into their performative practice of greetings through a quasi-interactive programme known as kutuma salamu, which literally translates as “sending greetings.” This article analyses the practices of kutuma salamu, a significant popular cultural phenomenon that is worthy of academic attention for at least two reasons. First, Voice of Kenya was the only radio service operational in Kenya from the 1960s to 1980s and it was largely associated with the serious business of official government communication. Second, in form and substance, this programme was very similar to presentday popular digital social media, yet dates from a time before the invention of the internet. The article examines how this popular cultural phenomenon thrived by disrupting official public service radio and how it mediated the performance of social identities. The main argument here is that radio has always provided an opportunity for alternative voices to be heard, and some of these voices can be understood as metaphorical extensions of the performance of transgressive social identities.