Day One: The Iteso People and their Music Story
…lage know this is a man of bad character. Achaung Kakolong: This is a song sung during droughts. Everyone in the village is running out of vegetables, and in the song the performers ask the villages to look for vegetables along the river banks. They need find wild vegetables wherever they can. We asked him about the type of vegetables they can find and they include “Erenge” (dark greens) and “Amudokolo” (vines). During the drought, all the women d…
Tabu Osusa Staff Profile
…running some of the top recording and performing bands and artists in the country, including the much acclaimed Orchestra Virunga and The Nairobi City Ensemble, and more recently Iddi Achieng,’ Makadem, Suzanna Owiyo, Olith Ratego, Ogoya Nengo, Gargar and Winyo to mention but a few. Together with the director of Alliance Française in Nairobi, Tabu Osusa co-chairs the steering committee of the “Spotlight on Kenyan Music“ project which seeks to dis…
Group 2: Sophie Nzayisenga Story
…y age seven she was doing festivals and by nine years old she had left the country to play a festival in Bulgaria! She was accepted as a female inanga player because she started so young and people loved seeing this child perform. By the time she came of age people were used to seeing her. Since then she’s toured America, East Asia and Europe – last week she was in Holland with 200 artists from around the world, and was one of only 5 chosen as the…
Day 9 – Sunday 9th July 2017 Story
…lutes or lyres – The strings are attached to a yoke which lies in the same plane as the sound‐table and consists of two arms and a cross‐bar.” Through a group interview, we attempted to compare them in: size (size of resonator; length of arms and per extension of strings); materials of fabrication (types of wood); body parts (any specific additional parts and why); strings number; playing techniques (position of instrument; hands positioning and f…
Group 7: The Impano Group Story
Sun 26 November, PM, Nyamirabo In the afternoon we drove to the Nyamirabo area of Kigali to record The Impano Group, (pronounced Imano group, silent P), which means “Gift” or “Talent”, a young five-part group that do modern takes on traditional songs and mix the inanga with the guitar. They have one guitar player, one inanga player and three vocalists. Yvanny is the songwriter, when they do originals. Yvanny, Livingston and Karinijabo met when th…
Group 6: Sudi Mavenge Story
Sun 26th November AM – Highland Suites Hotel, Kigali In the morning we recorded a brilliant guitar player, Sudi Mavenge, at the Highland Suites hotel. We were supposed to record him yesterday, along with his son Shukran Ngaborutonesha and his other guitarist Eric Nova, but there was a huge rainstorm and the location in Muhange ended up being too close to the road, and the cars and puddles made too much noise. So we decided to move the recording t…
What We Do Page
…field visits in both Kenya and Uganda. Our long term goal is to visit each country in East Africa and research, document and record the music and dance of the major traditional music styles of each region. Click on the following links to read our field reports from each of our visits: Music of the Mijikenda – Kenya’s Coastal Region Music of the Luo – Nyanza Province, Kenya Music of the Kalenjin, Great Rift Valley, Kenya Music of the Batwa, Kisoro,…
Uganda: Music of the Northern Tribes Gallery
…n Uganda, Kampala and Entebbe where we recorded the music of the Acholi, Alur and Iteso tribes. The journey started in Entebbe where we collected two vehicles to take the team to towns and villages in the north of the country including Gulu, Pakwach, Nebbi and Soroti. After 5 days recording in the north we returned to Kampala to record two more groups based near Naguru which perform in the traditional Alur and Acholi styles….
Day Two: February 17, 2020 (Stonetown) Story
…Vuai Juma Vuai. Ibrihim Ali Hassan has two brothers and two sons (youngest is 10) in this group. Songs: Mzuri Sana Nabia – About the Prophet Mohamed Yaa Nabia Salamu Alaika – Greeting for the Prophet Mohamed sung in Arabic. Hongera Bwana Harusi – Congratulations to the bride and groom Ilifurahika – The whole world is rejoicing after the battle of the prophets Ndoa Ni Sunna Adhimu – Perfect Marriage…
Global Influences Project: Artist Submissions Page
…he 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 identify a root note to play along with the song and build a bassline and groove from there. Afterwards, I found that some agogo or cowbell samples and some synths to evolve the track into a more dance/electro track per the prompt.” If you want to hear more of Yohanan’s work, head to www.blackbud…
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…
Day One: 7 March 2022 (Shikangania and Mukumu) Story
…t caused us some delays when the laptop overheated due to the hot tropical sun, resulting in drops in frame rates. We solved this problem simply by avoiding direct sunlight and staying in the shade. Due to the short period assigned for the completion of this project, we did not have time to conduct a recce and for that reason we came to realize rather late that some of the venues chosen for the recordings had no main power outlets. Fortunately and…
Group 4: Urugangaze Ballet Story
…and miles. We also experienced a wonderful variety of weather conditions: sun, rain, and an intense fog (limiting visibility to 5 meters). Here’s a bit of the rain! We survived and arrived at the Ethnographic Museum, where we recorded two groups. The first was the Urugangaze Ballet, a group of 55 performers in total (we saw 21 today). They are all made up of locals of different ages, the furthest being from Nyanza. The group was started in 1991 b…
Otieno Aloka Group
…pressure against the central stick. It provides a fast-moving, melodic accompaniment, similar to the fiddle in folk and country music….
Day Zero: 6 March 2022 – Travel To Stream Story
…ians via M-pesa and Pay-Pal contributions. Another possibility was to sell tickets with the use of online access codes that admit ticket holders into the virtual performance. The result was that a number of live streaming studios where performers book sessions to perform and stream their concerts sprung up in Nairobi. Some venues also adapted to hosting online performances, directly streaming shows to mobile devices and computers of audiences wher…
Page
…ians, British missionaries had travelled with a wind up gramophone playing country music, and that of Jimmie Rogers especially. Here’s Tabu’s telling of the rest of the story in Muzik: “And then the big bomber: the song I consider Tracey’s single most outstanding recording, “Chemirocha,” a paean to Jimmy Rogers (yes, the country singer) by some Kenyan girls. The song is haunting but made more so by Tracey’s introduction on the LP record (not inclu…