Raila Odinga, Muse of the Lake......His spirit lives on

What you need to know:

• For four decades, Raila was Kenya’s most sung-about politician. 
• Misiani’s Raila Odinga (Agwambo Jasakwa) is the oldest Raila song still widely circulated.

A year after his death, Raila Amolo Odinga still fills dance floors countrywide. The benga and ohangla songs he inspired remain.

On October 15, 2025, Kenya lost Raila Amolo Odinga. Within hours, Prince Indah was in the studio, determined to have a tribute ready before Baba’s body came home from India.

That instinct has been alive long before grief. For four decades, Raila was Kenya’s most sung-about politician. As we mark his first death anniversary, it is worth asking why. My answer is simple: Raila was a story, and benga and ohangla musicians are storytellers. His detentions, exiles, riddles, handshakes, losses and comebacks gave them a living epic.

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It began with Misiani…

Benga’s founding generation sang him first. Daniel Owino Misiani of Shirati Jazz and Osito Kale are named among the earliest, and Misiani’s Raila Odinga (Agwambo Jasakwa) is the oldest Raila song still widely circulated.

Its timing was crucial. After the August 1982 coup attempt, Raila was charged with treason and detained without trial for most of a decade. Praising him was dangerous. Misiani answered with cryptic Dholuo lyrics warning the Moi regime that high-handedness breeds rebellion, and was arrested more than once for his songs. In Misiani, Raila found his first griot.

From benga guitars to ohangla drums…

The tribute became a tradition. Musa Juma’s “Raila Amolo Odinga” praised an incorruptible patriot of the second liberation. Lady Maureen begged him in “Raila Duogie Dala” to come home to Kisumu, Bondo and Siaya, and sang in “Raila Jakom” that when Raila was unwell, all Kenyans were sick.

Then ohangla’s drums took over Nyanza’s clubs. Tony Nyadundo’s “Raila Igala Gala” (2006) celebrated a leader too complex to predict. Onyi Papa Jey, Emma Jalamo, Abenny Jachiga and Prince Indah carried the tradition forward.

These songs were rarely commissioned. In Luo culture, praise singing for a revered person is normal, whether or not the singer ever meets them. Onyi Papa Jey released his hit at 25 and met Raila only two years later. The music rose from the people, not the campaign office.

Songs that moved crowds…

Every Raila campaign had a soundtrack. In 2002, as Raila declared “Kibaki Tosha,” Gidi Gidi Maji Maji’s “Unbwogable” became the opposition’s anthem of defiance. In 2007, Onyi Papa Jey’s “ODM 2007 Official Anthem” turned rallies into call-and-response: “Mnataka nani?” “Chungwa!” Some Nairobi clubs then refused to book him.

In 2017, Jalamo’s “NASA Tibim” borrowed Raila’s habit of naming his line-up like a football commentator, and “Tibim” became a household word. In 2022, Emmanuel Musindi’s “Leo ni Leo” and Bahati’s “Fire” carried him into matatus and onto TikTok.

These songs taught politics in the language of the dance floor and kept hope alive between defeats. When mourners at his funeral took up the rally songs again, they were saying the struggle continues.

A year of farewell songs…

Raila died in Kochi, India, on October 15, 2025. That evening Prince Indah posted from the recording booth, reciting Raila’s names: Agwambo, Jakom, Tinga, Nyundo. His “Dholuo Tribute to Rt. Hon. Raila Odinga,” out within a day, honours his fight for multiparty democracy and the family who stood with him.

Others followed before the burial: Diamond Platnumz’s “Ulale Salama”, Rayvanny’s “Bye Bye Raila Amolo Odinga”, Christina Shusho’s tribute, and songs from Bahati to Kamba artists Kinyaata Surebet and Ken Kijana. At Nyayo Stadium, President William Ruto led thousands in Raila’s favourite, “Jamaica Farewell”. Not since Jomo Kenyatta’s death in 1978 has Kenya mourned a politician in song so quickly.

Why the songs outlive the seasons…

Campaign songs usually die with the campaign. Raila’s did not. “Unbwogable” still fills dance floors two decades on, and “Tibim” has been remixed for new political seasons.

Three things explain this. The songs grew from Luo oral tradition, where praise singing preserves a community’s memory of its heroes. They told one continuous epic of detention, exile, defeat and return, so each song felt like a new chapter rather than a jingle. And they belonged to the people, born in nightclubs and village studios.

We owe these musicians more than nostalgia. Many recordings survive only on cassettes, club videos and fragile YouTube uploads. Our universities, archives and Nyanza’s county governments should collect, digitise and study them before they are lost. The artists who sang Raila’s story, often at real cost to their careers, deserve fair royalties.

Raila never sat in State House. But in the songs of Nyanza he has been Jakom, the chairman, for 40 years. Those songs will keep his seat warm long after the rest of us are gone.

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Ms Oyier is a PhD candidate in communication studies at Daystar University, researching political, health, and digital communication.