Kenyan hymnody

Before the Second Vatican Council, Western hymns in translation and settings of the ordinary of the mass were the primary sources of congregational music among the mainline colonial churches in Eastern Africa, including in Kenya. For Protestants, the spread of Pentecostal songs provided an impetus for change. Oral-tradition adaptations of Western hymns also flourished in African Independent (Initiated) Churches. Nathan J. Corbitt, a missionary ethnomusicologist in Kenya during the early 1980s, notes that the ‘primary catalyst for the growth in new song among African Independent Congregations was the monolingual culture of many believers (mostly non-literate) who began to sing spontaneously...