Field Recording Report by Kahithe Kiiru Story
…on of Kenya in the period from 17thto 25thFebruary 2018. DAY 1 – Saturday 17th February 2018 The first day of recording for “Rhythms of Western Kenya” took place in Busia County, in the Samia sub-county. This sub-county was named after the Samia sub-group of the Luhya ethnic community who make the majority of its’ population. In Nanguba village of Agen’ga location, we met EKHUNJWE YA ABASAMIA folk group. Led by Stephen Bwire, a local music schol…
Kahithe Kiiru Staff Profile
Kahithe is a skilled researcher with extensive experience in ethnographic research and fieldwork management. She has 8 years of experience in ethnomusicological research in East Africa, with a special focus on dance traditions of Kenya. She possesses comprehensive knowledge of qualitative research methods, data collection and analysis, and is experienced in academic writing, content creation and editorial.Kahithe has a master’s degree (MPhil) in…
Day One: 7 March 2022 (Shikangania and Mukumu) Story
…since we had previously featured him on the Singing Wells project in April 2018. He later came to Ketebul Music studios in Nairobi in May that year and recorded a few songs that are yet to be officially released. Going through a narrow winding road we arrived at the Small Matters Park, our first location for the day. The Ketebul Music technical crew is well experienced in field recording routine preparations, having been part of the Singing Wells…
Day two: From Sirisia to Mabuyole Falls Story
Monday, February 19, 2018: Woke up early and drove to Sirisia to record the band Namatete. The band was founded by Weput Khulu Namatete in 1992. He and his friends gradually made instruments and learned to play them while taking care of their cattle. By 1992 they were good enough to call themselves a ‘serious’ band. The founder started by playing the Lituneu. His brother joined him for a while and brought the Shirili, the single stringed instrume…
Day Six: January 24, 2019 From Mwanza to Dodomo to Nzali to Nairobi Story
…always from the land, never migrated into Tanzania. The group was formed in 2018, but was built on a much older group. They perform in the Wuyina style. Their instruments/costumes include the: Ndulele (Horn), the Nindo (Shakers), the Mbega: (Animal Skins), the Muheme (Drums), the Kabati (Shakers), the Kalimba (Thumb Piano), the Zeze (Orutu), the Izeze (5 string large instrument), and the Muhongwa (Wooden water troughs, played on ground like cala…
Makunga Group
…always from the land, never migrated into Tanzania. The group was formed in 2018, but was built on a much older group. They perform in the Wuyina style. Their instruments/costumes include the: Ndulele (Horn), the Nindo (Shakers), the Mbega: (Animal Skins), the Muheme (Drums), the Kabati (Shakers), the Kalimba (Thumb Piano), the Zeze (Orutu), the Izeze (5 string large instrument), and the Muhongwa (Wooden water troughs, played on ground like calaba…
Day Three: Bungoma Town to Kakamega Story
…erformed next to the mausoleum where four kings were buried, dating back to 1700s. They had lots of dancers and instruments, including: Sukuti: Three drums Ikdengele: Ring Inyungu Isiongo: a pot with a cool ‘drum stick’ like a rubber plate. Ing’oma: skinned drums Manyanga: bottle top rattles Tsisala: Sticks Lisanduku: A wooden box on which you scrap a stick. Out of context, this sounds like finger nails on a chalkboard. But in context, it creates…
All field reports have now been published and provide links to youtube videos! Story
…You can now see all Field Reports for February 2018 trip to Kenya. If you want to link directly to youtube videos you can do in field reports or go direct here. A detailed account of the trip written by Kahithe Kiiru is available here….
Day Five: Ilesi, Khayega to Kisumu Story
Thursday, February 22, 2018 We travelled to Ilesi, Khakyega to record three groups. The first was Imachina. They call themselves after the village where they live. As with many groups over the last two days, most of their songs are for processions, like weddings, funerals, bullfights or rites of passage. So they tend to play 3-4 songs in a row to match the procession. We asked them to pick their favourite processions and then play a couple songs…
Day Four: Ikolomani to Amalemba Story
Wednesday, 21 February 2018 We drove from our hotel, in Kakamega, to Shiriese Ikolomani to record the Super Phoenix Band. The band was founded originally by Jacob Luseno, who mentored the current band leader Julius Intenya. The musical style is Mutibu. They played roughly 8-10 songs, including several goes with our influences artist. These songs included: Shapeless: A song about a women who lost her shape, lost her curves. Alusiola: A song about…
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…
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…
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….
Albums Introduction Page
…h the music of the area we were recording in. Each album also contains a number of extra tracks that weren’t strictly part of the archiving recordings we were making. These recordings are of ‘Influences’ sessions – where a popular musical artist has joined us on our trip to collaborate with the groups we record. In the event that we have invited one of the musicians back to the Ketebul Studios in Nairobi to record, we will also include these rec…
The Singing Wells podcast #3 Podcast
…Here is podcast number 3. In this podcast, we look at the development of Abubilla Music – one of the partners in The Singing Wells project – from initial idea, to music label. There are interviews with members of the SMCC, and music from the SMCC, Louise Calf, Gus Warriner, Tati Kalveks, Chris Kozlowski and Ketebul artist Winyo. Click here to download the podcast….
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…