Boomba music

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for music. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Find sources: "Boomba music" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Boomba music" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Boomba music, also referred to as kapuka (due to the beat pattern; not to be confused with kapuka rap), is a form of hip pop music popular in Kenya. It incorporates hip hop, reggae and African traditional musical styles. The lyrics are in Swahili, Sheng or local dialects.^[1] It is associated with the Ogopa Deejays and is believed to have originated in the late 1990s with artists such as Redsan, Bebe Cool and Chameleone. It went on to dominate East African airwaves (especially Kenya and Uganda) after the release of the Ogopa Deejays' first album in 2001, which included artists such as the late E-Sir, Nameless, Mr. Lenny, Amani, Mr. Googz and Vinnie Banton amongst others.

The over-saturation of playlists with this music style caused some to criticise it, including the artists K-South who had a hit titled "Kapuka This, Kapuka That". This^{[clarification needed]} also led to other styles such as genge music being formed by producer Clemo to diversify the market. Despite the critics the music continues to be very popular in Kenya although more so now in Uganda. Of late, "genge" has also come to refer more generally to boomba and "kapuka" music.