'They sing mostly about cows ... and peace': how social media is driving a Maasai music revival

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jul/03/maasai-music-revival-beat-driven-tracks-young-kenyans-heritage

‘They sing mostly about cows … and peace’: how social media is driving a Maasai music revival

Digital artists from Maa-speaking peoples including the Maasai and Samburu are gaining popularity in Kenya with a blend of traditional and modern

Boris Paillard
Fri 3 Jul 2026 06.00 EDT

As the sun sets, a goat’s leg sizzles on the fire in Kenya’s Mau Forest, a bumpy three-hour drive from the nearest Tarmac road. “Nowadays, Maasai shoot with cameras, not spears,” the manager says as he watches a Maasai musician looking at himself on a smartphone screen.

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Samburudollar. “He lives in one of the areas of Samburu county still plagued by banditry and has lost seven friends to gunfire in the span of two weeks,” says Imana. “Banditry forces him to regularly slip back into his guardian role of the moran [warrior] to retrieve stolen cattle.”

Many of the songs produced by this new generation promote unity and denounce intertribal conflict. Others set out to convince estranged members of the community of the benefits of semi-nomadic rural life, like Kamurar Maasai in his song Osingolio Loongishu. “Since I started singing songs on modern beats concerning cows, a lot of Maasai are coming back to their culture. The song compels them to find their way home and get their own cows,” he says.

The spiritual meaning of cattle is rooted in the Maasai origin story, as the animals are said to have arrived on Earth from the heavens alongside the first humans.

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