Paper short abstract:

Kiptesot arap Sang, (popularly known after his band as Junior Kotestes) was, arguably, the most prominent artiste singing in Kalenjin language. This paper interrogates how the artiste metaphorises sex in his lyrics to avoid a language that would otherwise offend the sensibilities of his audiences.

Paper long abstract:

By the time he died in February 2015, Kiptesot arap Sang, (popularly known after his band as Junior Kotestes) was, arguably, the most prominent artiste singing in Kalenjin language. As a testament to his popularity, Sang emerged in 2014 as the highest overall earner of royalties of Kenya's Music Copyright Society, beating established artists like Hubert Nakitare (Nonini) and Dennis Kaggia (DNA). I speculate in this paper that the popularity of Sang’s lyrics among his Kalenjin audiences is partly due to his ability to reference sexual themes but subtly camouflage them in innuendo and powerful figurative language. Although romantic love is a prominent theme in Kalenjin popular music references to sexual love are scanty. However, by creatively deploying the linguistic resources of his Kalenjin language, Sang speaks through metonymy, ambiguity, irony, and metaphor to sing sexual love while concealing the vulgar and the profane that is often associated with the kind of popular music that apes the American genre. Using six of Junior Kiptesot Sangs’s top songs, this paper, therefore, interrogates how the artiste metaphorises sex in his lyrics to avoid a language that would otherwise offend the sensibilities of his audiences. I argue that the challenge of deciphering the deep and double meanings the artist achieves for his music through constellation of metaphors is what makes the consumption of this kind of music gratifying and leads to the creation of a fan culture that makes this consumption collective through live call-in programs in Kalenjin language FM Radios.