Of Spider, Raila's popular DJ, and why all Kenyans are disc jockeys

In ordinary speech, a disc jockey (DJ) occupies a modest corner of the public imagination, alongside comedians, magicians, acrobats and performers, all figures of fleeting spectacle and shallow delight. At best, DJs are celebrated as regular curators of sound, entertainers tasked with no more than sustaining a moment’s pulse of amusement.

In The Republic, a timeless work of philosophy, Plato is deeply sceptical of such figures. To him, creative performers, including the DJs, trafficked in imitation, seduction and emotional manipulation; they stirred the soul but seldom sharpened the mind. In Plato’s ideal world, they were to be kept on a leash, if not banished altogether.

Yet history, in its quiet irony, has a way of overturning even the most carefully reasoned doctrines. Art, once confined to the amusement platforms, has since found its way into the streets and into the restless hearts of the people.

Today, creative art does not merely mirror the moment; it seeks to move and shape the moment, to unsettle authority and to awaken a people’s conscience and consciousness. The stage has become a pulpit against which defiance is preached. Songs have become rallying calls for revolutions. Verses have become anthems in defiance. Turntables, once instruments of leisure and easy excitement, have become platforms where rhythm carries resistance and the DJ no longer merely entertains, but declares, disrupts and defines the moment.

Nowhere has this evolution found clearer symbolic expression than in the figure of DJ Spider. By ordinary estimation of patronage politics, he /might have been expected to follow the gravitational pull of power and privilege rather than chart an uncertain path of principle. Once associated with Raila Odinga, DJ Spider was widely expected to drift toward the orbit of establishment comfort and state amid the political realignments that have seen many trade convictions for convenience. He did not.

Instead, in his own words, DJ Spider chose a side he thought Baba would have chosen. The people’s side.

In the coded language of Kenyan politics, where “Linda Ground” and “Linda Mwananchi” have emerged as competing metaphors for State power versus grassroots struggle, his choice resonated beyond his trade. “Linda Ground” evokes the commanding weight of the system, the structured, well-oiled and politically safe side. “Linda Mwananchi”, on the other hand, speaks to the harsh reality of standing with the people, even when the risks are grim, rewards are uncertain and the path is lean.

To choose between either side is to confront the moral dilemma of our time: Whether to side with a faction that promises immediate gratification or to walk the rough, uncharted terrain of principle. To choose the latter is to reject the easy rhythm of patronage for the harder, often discordant music of conviction.

And so, the DJ, once a background figure, a mere purveyor of amusement and facilitator of other people’s voices, has become the voice itself. No longer confined to decks and turntables, DJ Spider is now a metaphor, a lexicon of defiance. The question posed by Jeff Koinange on Citizen TV to a key member of the “Linda Ground” faction on how they want to seek “pawa” without a DJ was more than a joke. It was a direct recognition that political energy today is inseparable from symbolic resistance.

What we are seeing today, as happened in June 2024 with the Gen Z revolution, is not merely the politicisation of entertainment, but the moralization of choice. The DJ stands as a figure who confronts the perennial dilemma of public life: Whether to play the tune that pays or the tune that matters.

And in this, we are all DJs. Each day presents its own subtle negotiations, moments where the allure of what is easy beckons with persuasive urgency. To comply is to blend seamlessly into the dominant playlist; to resist is to risk obscurity, discomfort, even loss. Yet, it is precisely in these moments that history is quietly constructed. The side one chooses in politics, as in life, becomes the measure by which one is later judged.

Ms Wekesa is a development communication consultant