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The contents of this special issue provide us with insightful observations on new and emerging trends in popular culture, its nexus with language, politics and creative productions in Kenya and Tanzania. The substance of the analyses and discussion resides in the dynamism of popular culture as reflected by changing lifestyles and innovations in language, music, film, changing sociolinguistic spaces, and 'localized' global trends. Embedded in this dynamism is the crossing of borders into spheres of transnational life, and global interconnectedness.

Current and past trends are analysed and even projected into the future, thus entrenching the idea of research and scholarship as an indispensable barometer of society, politics and culture. In all these interesting sociocultural and linguistic phenomena, we see continuities and regional commonalities across national boundaries. Language features crucially in all the articles, no doubt due to its pervasiveness in human social relations and cultural practices.