Ohangla Music as a Parodic Genre and Postcolonial Luo Experience

This paper explores the nature of ohangla music as a Luo genre that encapsulates other Luo musical genres and forms from other communities. It seeks to account for this situation by considering postcolonial responses to change. It argues that ohangla has traditional roots as the quintessential parodic form. This history makes it one of the most appropriate genres that the Luo community employs to explore past and present musical generic forms. It eases the expression of postcolonial identity, since music is, after all, a vital artistic medium, through which people embody the self.