Patronage, Repression, and Co-Optation: Bobi Wine and the Political Economy of Activist Musicians in Uganda
Open Access
- 28 June 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Africa Spectrum
- Vol. 56 (2), 127-150
- https://doi.org/10.1177/00020397211025986
Abstract
In recent decades, musicians have figured prominently on Africa’s political stage. Popular Ugandan musician Bobi Wine moved beyond protest singer and ventured into politics by entering parliament in 2017 and challenging long-term President Yoweri Museveni at the presidential polls in 2021. To push for social change, Wine created the People Power movement and built an alliance with fellow musicians. This article studies Wine’s movement and his alliance with musicians by taking a political economy approach. I posit that the political activism of musicians reaches its limits when a sitting government can easily threaten the economic base of its oppositional challengers. Alliances become fragile once the government can demonstrate that challenging a ruling elite has severe consequences for one’s livelihood whereas aligning with the government ensures economic prosperity. The article uses ethnographic data, interviews, and newspaper articles to demonstrate this argument.Keywords
Funding Information
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (405630485)
This publication has 30 references indexed in Scilit:
- Songs of a new era: Popular music and political expression in the Ivorian crisisAfrican Affairs, 2013
- Fela Kuti and the oppositional lyrical powerMuziki, 2012
- PEACE PROFILE: Fela Kuti, An “African Man Original”Peace Review, 2010
- Entertaining repression: Music and politics in postcolonial CameroonAfrican Affairs, 2005
- Praise and Protest: Music and Contesting Patriotisms in Postcolonial KenyaSocial Dynamics, 2004
- Music and Politics in AfricaSocial Dynamics, 2004
- Traditional protest media and anti‐military struggle in Nigeria 1988–1999African Affairs, 2002
- African Ambiguities: “No-party Democracy” in UgandaJournal of Democracy, 1998
- Fela Anikulapo-KutiJournal of Black Studies, 1982
- Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial TheoryAmerican Journal of Sociology, 1977