Satirical Criticism in the song One Lege by the Kenyan Gen-Zs

Abstract

Satire has been used to criticize bad governance by many authors. This study focuses on satirical criticism in the song One Lege by the Kenyan Gen-Zs. The song was created shortly after the Sabasaba protests on July Seventh, 2025, where 31 people were killed, according to official reports. The song expresses resistance, resilience and artivism against what they considered injuctice from their political leadership. The song employs humour to resist oppression. The study’s objectives are: to explore how the author achieves humour through the song, One Lege, To analyse the reception of the song One Lege by the Kenyan audience and to examine the effects of the humour in the One Lege song of the  The study will use the three humour theories: Superiority Theory, the oldest and potentially the most problematic of the three major theories, claims that laughter comes from feelings of superiority to others or to our past selves; Relief Theory which avers that laughter provides us a release from the stress and psychic pressures of both living in a world that doesn’t allow us to fully express all of our animal desires and of knowing that someday we will no longer be living in this world and the Incongruity Theory that claims that we laugh at things that are unexpected and incongruous. The study uses the qualitative research approach with textual analysis as its methodology. It will equally get complementary data from theses and electronic sources. The data will be analysed and conclusions made. In conclusion, the research hopes to contribute to the artivism of the Gen-Zs in Kenya.