There’s been a good deal of publicity over the last few days about the song for the Diamond Jubilee written by Gary Barlow and Andrew Lloyd- Webber. We were of course particuarly interested to hear the song and see the video as one of the performers is Ayub Ogada, a Kenyan musician from the Luo tribe who Gary Barlow recorded on our recommendation (see previous post on this here). Just to recap about the connection…
Back in March 2011, we were invited to Sippers, a restaurant and live music venue in Nairobi, to celebrate the launch of the Singing Wells project and the collaboration between Ketebul Music and Abubilla Music. Tabu Osusa, Ketebul’s founder, had organised an evening of music and Ayub was one of the performers. He played his signature instrument, the traditional nyatiti and sang his most celebrated track, Kothbiro which featured on the soundtrack to The Constant Gardener.
So, Ayub is one of the many musicians from around the world who performs on the Diamond Jubilee song. It’s a collaboration of many different musical styles, instruments and vocalists – you could call it a truly global song. And talking of truly global songs, here’s one of our very own…
The track is called 71 Hours to Monday, an original song from Abubilla Music which tells the story of a girl who hates her job and counts down the hours from Friday evening until the dreaded Monday comes round again.
The global remix of the song features musicians from Sao Paulo to London to Nairobi, with lyrics in both English and Swahili. Musical styles are mixed – from the violins in London to Brazilian drums to the Kenyan nyatiti courtesy of Ayub Ogada.
You can read all about the making of the global remix of ’71 hours’ here but in the meantime, have a look at the video which tells the story and was released for the launch of the Singing Wells project a year ago…..
71 Hours to Monday – the global remix