The dynamics of humour in coital imagery: Reflections on Bukusu Embalu and select East African popular music

Abstract

Beyond procreation and continuity of the human race, sex and sexuality are a long-lasting creative force in literary art, whether oral or written, and beyond. Indeed, there are an unlimited number of artists whose claim to fame and immortality is their treatment of sex and sexuality in their creations. From traditional to contemporary oral art forms, references to physical sex, enunciation of the feelings and emotions underlying sex, and the accompanying innuendos are practically a social fact that is, however, seldom acknowledged. Also rarely acknowledged is the propensity of artistic sexual references to occasion excitement and amusement among hearers. Artists of all ages are wont to deploy sexual images as inspired by their unique contexts and diverse artistic ends, desires, and aspirations. Indeed, the desire to amuse and move to mirth and laughter, even as salient messages are delivered, may be one of the fundamental motivations. In the present chapter, we look at how coital imagery is deployed by artists in two different sexual humour cycles (old and contemporary, respectively) to arouse aesthetic response of amusement and mirth and, in the process, bring to surface any issues of profound social import. We specifically explore the making of sexual humour in traditional Embalu ritual among the Babukusu of western Kenya, on the one hand, and selected contemporary East African popular music, on the other, with the aim of establishing how the two genres relate in both content and form relative to their idiosyncratic contexts.