What to do when Teens say "Amka Ukatike": An Exploration of Agency in Teen Oral Literacy Performed Through Kenyan Hip Hop.

This paper considers a Kenyan hip hop song; Amka Ukatike’ (C’zar, 2007), as an example of teen oral forms of expression and tracks how this particular song choreographs the meeting point between the canon and teen “ways with words” (Heath, 1983). Through discourse analysis of text and performance media, the paper discusses how this choreography is a metaphor of the intersection between teenagerese and standard school culture while demonstrating tensions in this tenuous intersection. Hip hop exemplifies teen oral literacy which is under privileged in the formal classroom space and particularly since Kenyan hip hop is performed in Sheng; a stigmatized teenage way of talking. Ultimately, this paper joins the body of knowledge that has suggested the formulation of a third space (Bhabha, 1990; Soja, 1996) as an amalgam that alleviates tensions caused by discrepancies between youth forms of oral literacy and standard school literacy. It is not uncommon to see the stigmatization of oral forms of literacy and schools have become a unique site where tension between unacceptable teen literacies clash with canonical forms of literacy. Does this disconnect necessarily engender a literacy crisis? How can democracy be upheld through pedagogy that is tolerant to and inclusive of embodied and performed forms of teen oral text? This paper explores how Amka Ukatike (C’Zar 2007) teaches educators to collaborate with teenagers in creating a rich space that nurtures teenagerese while enriching the canon. This paper considers a Kenyan hip hop song; Amka Ukatike (C’zar, 2007), as an example of teen oral forms of expression and tracks how this particular song choreographs the meeting point between the canon and teen “ways with words” (Heath, 1983). Amka Ukatike translated in standard Swahili means, “get up and get cut up into pieces,” but in the teenage variant form of speaking called Sheng, it means “limber up and dance till you become flexible as if your body were made up of rhythmic bits and pieces, rather than one rigid whole.” Through discourse analysis of text and performance media, the paper discusses how this choreography is a metaphor of the intersection between “teenagerese” and standard school culture while demonstrating tensions in this tenuous intersection. Hip hop exemplifies teen oral literacy which is underprivileged in the formal classroom space; particularly since Kenyan hip hop is performed in Sheng, a stigmatized teenage vernacular. Ultimately, this article joins the body of knowledge that suggests the formulation of a third space as an amalgam that alleviates tensions caused by discrepancies between youth forms of oral literacy and standard school literacy (Bhabha, 1990; Soja, 1996). It is not uncommon to see the stigmatization of oral forms of literacy in schools which in this regard, have become a unique site where tensions simmer due to the clash between unacceptable teen literacies and canonical forms of literacy. Does this disconnect necessarily engender a literacy crisis? How can democracy be upheld through pedagogy that is tolerant to and inclusive of embodied and performed forms of teen oral text? This paper explores how Amka Ukatike (C’Zar 2007) teaches educators to collaborate with teenagers in creating a rich space that nurtures teenagerese while enriching the canon.