The Kalenjin of Kenya Album
…rs and the Kewamoi Women Dancers both featured. The latter – a nice addition to the lineup, as the field day coincided with World Women’s Day. Eddie Grey was part of the team for the recordings, and he joined a number of groups to join them for Influences recordings. Two of these have been included on the album – his guitar playing accompanying The Elimu Cultural Promoters and the Kewamoi Women Dancers….
Group 8: Abutazi Story
…nanga with rap. Their flow was such that they often went straight from one number into another, so the set list reflects this. Set list Agahinda (“Sad”) and Inanga. Agahinda is a song about depression that Makare wrote 8 months ago, using a metaphor of a burning house where the smoke can’t be kept in. This went straight into Inanga, an ode to the inanga and its sound and all it does for them. We loved this double number so much we recorded it twic…
Ayub Ogada Group
…me in Nyahera location, not far from Kisumu town, and conducted a long yet free of form type of interview. Although a Luo himself, Ayub had never learned how to play the nyatiti in a traditional setting. He picked it up later in his career and studied from a player/teacher at the national cultural centre of Bomas of Kenya in the 1980s. He remembers he had gone for 6 lessons (at a 100 shillings) only and then continued practicing and experimenting…
Day 5 – Wednesday 5th July 2017 Story
…me in Nyahera location, not far from Kisumu town, and conducted a long yet free of form type of interview. Although a Luo himself, Ayub had never learned how to play the nyatiti in a traditional setting. He picked it up later in his career and studied from a player/teacher at the national cultural centre of Bomas of Kenya in the 1980s. He remembers he had gone for 6 lessons (at a 100 shillings) only and then continued practicing and experimenting…
Day One: January 18, 2019. Assemble in Tanzania Story
…ording session, we will also capture alternative takes; these are called: ‘Freestyle’: We work hard to give our groups the space and freedom to sing and dance as they would during a village performance, but there are constraints. Typically we want the group to be seen by our wide camera and many of the musicians have an attached microphone. While generally this isn’t a problem, there are times when the group is constrained. So, we often do another…
Group 4: Urugangaze Ballet Story
…dance. As with the other Intore we saw, there was a group accompanying the dance on the amakondera (horns). A couple of facts we learned about the Intore today: firstly, the Intore name is derived from the verb “gutora” (to choose/select) as a large number of the trainees originally were recruited from the children of upper middle class families. Secondly, the lion manes that the dancers wear are made of wood that is beaten so fine it becomes hair…
Day 1 – Saturday 1st July 2017 Story
…yatiti’s shape (resembles the traditional Luo hut shape), symbolism of the number (8) of strings of the nyatiti, his tuning techniques and order of string tuning, together with the story of his personal attachment to his instruments collection (owns 14 nyatitis). Upon our arrival to Kisumu City, we had another semi‐formal interview that would birth ideas for other hypothesis and arguments to follow up on. We met Meshack Okoth Okumu, who was to be…
Global Influences Project: Artist Submissions Page
…-project YOHANAN X HIARI YA MOYO We really enjoyed this musical piece from Ethiopian composer, Yohanan Ermias Bekele. We love how he transformed the Hiari Ya Moyo’s driving rhythm’s into something that could be heard in clubs across the world. “I selected the Hiariya Moyo sample as I found the rhythm familiar and similar to some of the 6/8 rhythms found in my home country Ethiopia. As the electric bass is my main instrument, I first tried to ident…
Group 1: Inganzo Ngari Group Story
…da, Uganda, Burundi and parts of Congo). Then the same dancers performed a number about a community, Intwatwa, formerly known as the Batwa, the group we recorded in November 2012. It was a celebration dance with many steps to honour their rich and historic culture. Next we had the Intore – which means a traditional warrior dance. This was a manifestation of each warrior showing the king what he’s made of – his talent, his weaponry, and judging by…
Day Zero: February 15, 2020 – Assemble in Zanzibar Story
…ay the 14th of February and flew to Zanzibar on Kenya Airways on the first flight on Saturday, making our way to the Ngawala Hotel. Temperature 33 degrees centigrade. Partially cloudy. Saturday was about set up, so we’ll use this ‘Day Zero’ post to fill you in on the purpose of the trip. First, Zanzibar is an island off Tanzania, with a long colorful history. Before it was ‘controlled’ by the Portuguese in 1503, it was a base for traders be…
Mchele Mchele Sanaa Group Group
…This group, from the Sukuma community, was formed in 2010 and performs with a number of styles: Bukomia Lume, Buchheye, Wigashe. Their instruments are: Ng’oma (Drums), Pembe (animal horns, large impala), Firimbi (flute), and Njuga (shakers). …
Conclusion: Challenges and Recomendations Story
…ecording mission is quite satisfactory. Considering the limited time and a number of challenges encountered, I believe we managed to accomplish most of the set objectives and bring back an extensive amount of data and video/sound materials of very good quality. However, there is space for improvement. I think that team work was successful, although division of roles, more particularly on the data collection part on the project, was initially blear…
Day 4 – Tuesday 4th July 2017 Story
…ately a rather difficult interview to conduct because of the interviewee’s reservations, as well as for reasons of bad weather that chased us away before we could complete it. However, we did manage to find out several interesting information, notably, on his beginnings as a player and on the instrument manufacturing itself. Alex Ogwe confirmed our two generation theory and said he only started playing once his father was gone. He also gave us an…
Uganda: music of the Batwa Gallery
…record the performances of six Batwa communities from the district of Kisoro – Birara, Mpwera, Kanyabukunga, Micyingo, Gatera and Kabahenda….
FAQ’s Page
…the recording. This amount varies based on a number of factors such as the number of members in the group and the number of songs we record. In the event of any music we record making money directly (through sales, sync licensing or performance royalties) we will endeavour to channel this money back to the original performers. Can I buy the music you have recorded? A selection of our music is available to download from our site. We have one album…
The Revival of the Entongooli Page
…e look at how to shape these trees to create and tune each note on the Xylophone. From Embaire to Entongooli: Part 2 In this video, we continue to learn about the process of building the Embaire, also known as the xylophone, to help educate our young music scholars about music, melody and instrument building. We are shown how they finish off their Embaire and then talk to some young students about what they have learned. What is clear from our tri…