The spectre of rootless urban youth (bayaaye) inKulyennyingi,a novel of Amin-era Uganda

Abstract

Bayaaye is a Luganda word meaning ‘hooligans’ used since the 1970s to both disparage Ugandan urban youth and celebrate their streetwise resourcefulness. The original so-called bayaaye were youth, often fresh from the countryside, who worked as street hustlers in the 1970s underground economy. This article focuses on how one Ugandan intellectual, M. B. Nsimbi, in his Luganda-language novel about the Idi Amin era, Kulyennyingi (1984), diagnosed the rise of the bayaaye as a national moral pathology. I discuss how this novel relates to earlier Luganda literary works, which advocated an idealized precolonial, rural African tradition as a moral reference point for modern living. A recent revised discourse about urban youth as ‘bayaaye’ or ‘ghetto’, accompanying the political rise of reggae star Bobi Wine, is considered in light of the earlier history of the bayaaye stereotype.

COVID-19 and the Ugandan Presidential Election: Contesting Lockdown Authority in Popular Songs

“…Wine was celebrated by his fans as the artist who remembered his “ghetto” roots after he attended university and built a successful musical career. His songs, notably his breakout 2005 single “Ghetto,” depicted the plight of the urban poor and complained of a negligent government which he accused of being more interested in courting rich investors than in caring for those who struggle (Pier 2021). Bebe Cool came to be seen by his critics, contrastingly, as the son of a rich government minister who had frittered away the advantages he was born with, singing catchy, commercial songs without showing real concern for struggling Ugandans.…”