On our first day of recording, we follow Siti Binti Saad’s footsteps to Bi Kidude and to Amina Abdalla, a performer we met on the grounds of the Ngawala Hotel (Coincidently, Ngawala is another name for Dhow), where we recorded three groups. Nyota Za Meremeta – The group’s name means ‘twinkling stars’. …
We spend the morning of November 23rd watching and listening to the amazing inanga playing of Sophie Nzayisenga
On our last day in Lake Region, we paid a visit to Ayub Ogada, probably the most internationally acclaimed Kenyan musician, whose use of the nyatiti in different musical genres is both original and pertinent for our Masters of the Nyatiti story. We spent the day at his home in Nyahera location, not far from Kisumu…
Our second day we drove into Stone Town. We recorded the first two groups at the Emerson Spice Hotel along the seaside. This hotel is an Arab style hotel, reminiscent of the rhiads in Marrakech with lots of small courtyards. In the Emerson Spice Hotel we filmed the first two groups in a…
We drove to Gikonda for an amazing afternoon with Makanyaga Abdul and his band
Day 6: On this day, we travelled by road back to Nairobi. This report lacks detailed information on several days of recording in Nairobi, because of my absence. The team’s résumé of those days’ activities is included in the form of short notes: Day 7: Recording of the making of obokano, an 8 string instrument from…
