In our increasingly global world, it’s easy for traditional ways of living to be left behind. From London to Nairobi, Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town, people flock to the cities and leave behind their cultural traditions. But in some pockets of the world, there are still tribes that have preserved centuries-old traditions. Singing…
Happy new year! We hope your 2016s have gotten off to a good start, and that you’ve been bringing in the year by listening to lots of traditional East African music. Before we start posting exciting news about the upcoming year, here’s a quick recap of what we got up to in 2015: 1. We went discovering…
Have you ever asked yourself where music genres come from? Why do we have Jazz or Blues, and what’s going to be the next big thing? The answer is influences; something that Singing Wells is deeply passionate about. Many genres of popular music like Blues, Jazz, Salsa and Rumba derive to varying degrees from traditional…
As part of our drive to promote the traditional music of East Africa I’ve been spending some time meeting the urban community in Nairobi. I’ve been talking to people about their music interests, whether the idea of Singing Wells appeals to them and what more we can do to ensure this musical culture is not…
I’m new to Singing Wells and I’ve spent the last few weeks listening to pretty much every song on the site, getting to know the amazing traditional music of East Africa! It was tough to pick, but for my first blog post I thought I’d share my top 5 songs so far. 1. Otacho Young…
The history of African music recording and archiving can be seen most clearly and compellingly by detailing the history of a few key individuals, who were pioneers in their field. At the turn of the 20th Century, a colonised Africa was viewed as backward and void of any real culture worth preserving, which is why…
As we reflect on what we’ve learned with Singing Wells over the last 5 years, maybe, just maybe, music is a lot more important that we originally thought (and Lord knows we love music)
In March 2012 the Singing Wells team travelled to Kenya’s Great Rift Valley to record the music of the Kalenjin tribes people. The people from this highland ethnic group – the Nilotic – include eight culturally and linguistically related sub tribes – Kipsigis, Nandi, Tugen, Marakwet, Keiyo, Sabaot and Terik. They are perhaps most widely…
