Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…l female dancers and two ladies in particular were stunning. The best our Singing Wells team have seen. In Acholi dance it’s all about the head, hips and feet. The second theme was percussion. Most of the groups were supported by: Bul (drums), Gara (ankle shakers) and the Gwara (calabash or tambourin with Samba drumming, in this case a tortoise sized shell that they hit with a brush of wire). In addition, one of the groups featured the Uvure, a wo…
UOBDU report on Singing Wells visit to the Batwa, Kisoro Uganda News
It’s exactly a year since we took the Singing Wells project to Kisoro to record the music of the Batwa. Since then we have been pleased to hear news updates from our friends and hosts at UOBDU about the Batwa communities we visited. This week UOBDU Coordinator Zaninka Penninah sent a detailed report to us with feedback about all the music groups who performed for the Singing Wells project. The good news is that being involved in the project seems…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…nd share, which is exactly what we want in order to carry on building the Singing Wells community. Rosie has made some ‘how-to’ guides on how to add to a map yourself which you can access easily on our website too, in a few steps, ‘Housekeeping’, ‘The Map Outline’, ‘Prepare Your Data’. I met with Rosie to talk about her experience using the map for the benefit of Singing Wells. How did you discover the mapping software? I am currently reading medi…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…ar stopped to pick up Akello, a lovely Ugandan singer/songwriter, who is joining the group as our Influences artist. The Emmanuel car headed into Kampala to pick up our press badges. We then headed off to Gulu at around 2PM (yes, we tend to spend a lot of time getting mobile phone cards!) and headed out on a 360 km drive to the town of Gulu in Northern Uganda. Within minutes we were deeply immersed in the ‘classic’ East African road scene: big tal…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…Ghana. So Vicki switched seats with Jimmy and talked to Andrew about the Singing Wells project for an hour. We then all settled down to watch Ted before landing about 8 hours later in Entebbe. All bags were gratefully recovered and we took a taxi for an 8 minute journey to the Airport Guesthouse Entebbe, where we were greeted by our old friends, Jan Willem Van De Kamp (the owner of this hotel and the Travelers Rest in Kisoro), Charles and Simba (…
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
You might remember back in November 2011, while the Singing Wells team discovered the Music of the Luo, they recorded the beautiful sound of the nyatiti, eventually purchasing one for our studio back home! There’s one on the right. On Day 11 of that field trip in Siaya, Kenya, they saw two nyatiti groups, first The Joginda Boys, featuring Oganda Joginda. Watch and listen: The second nyatiti group featured Okumu K’Orengo, another fantastic player…
Background on the Music of Northern Uganda News
…around the outside and women dance in the middle without drums (typically in Uganda, drums are only for men). A group of elderly men would perform it during the time of crowning the chief and then when he dies. It is also performed to entertain important personnel on big occasions. Being the only royal dance, it is one of the most important of the many dances of the Acholi: 2. We then plan to record a group performing the Otole war dance, althoug…
Lango Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…er with the Iteso, Kumam and Karimojong, they comprise the Atekerin family in Uganda. Customs: The Lango have a cultural distaste for witchcraft, and a strong work ethic. They live in small groups, and recognise no tribal chief, except those chosen to defend the common interest in the time of war. Hutchinson in “The Living Races of Mankind” adds, ‘The Lango are specially noted for the care bestowed on their elaborate and highly fantastic head-dres…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…dly serious in their thank you to the manager. But in many ways, we kept thinking it is sad that they find it so rare for someone to essentially do his job that they need to write a song. Johnnie, Bishop and Eddie all joined in to support them in the studio with Winyo and Nina working on back up vocals. They were a huge amount of fun, smiling throughout it all. Other than recording, we continued to blog our little hearts out, write up trip reports…
Lugbara Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…ot have kingdoms and kings presiding over them as like other ethnic groups in Uganda. They mainly had chiefs who were their leaders. They formed friendly alliances with neighbouring chiefdoms to ensure their security against attacks from other ethnic groups. Rather than an army, every able-bodied man had the duty to protect his village hence all able-bodied men were automatically considered a soldier though this was not a permanent duty. Language:…
Alur Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…lur. Location: The Alur live mainly in the Nebbi, Zombo and Arua districts in Uganda, but also reside in the Congo. They are part of the Luo group. Population: 460,000 History: Alur society has adopted a socio-hierarchical system of politically independent chiefdoms, which was one of the only sytems that was unaffected by the Ugandan ban on traditional monarchies in 1966. Language: Part of the Western Nilotic language group, their language is clos…
Acholi Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…istrcts in Northern Uganda. Population: There are about 1.17 million Acoli in Uganda. History: They came to northern Uganda from Bahr el Ghazal in South Sudan. In the late seventeenth century, they developed a socio-hierarchical system, in which communities, or chiefdoms, were run by Rwodi (rulers). They were traditionally hunting communities, whose economies revolved around hunting and breeding livestock. In the British colonial period, the Acoli…
Abubilla Music remix an original Batwa song for Influences News
…recorded in the Ketebul Music studios in Nairobi following our field trip in Uganda to record the Music of the Batwa. The lead vocalist is Jovah Nyiramajoro from the Mpwera community just outside Kisoro, supported by vocalists from other Batwa communities in the area. The song, called ‘Inyange’, is in praise of beautiful people who are compared to the beautiful white Inyange (Egret) bird. Musicians from Abubilla Music in London have added to the…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…s. The songs were: Kinyakar, Kamatakar, Chepo Nandi, Kamitoi, Kaperwo, Chemining Tie, Chepo Chepkai, Kimnakiy Mitinge, Kisech. Click here to go to Song Translations Everything Else Everything else from today can be divided into three key events. First, we survived the drive. There were a few scary moments, the first being driving to the village for the shoot – straight up a very steep hill. This was not a hill for most humans and certainly wasn’t…
Music of Northern Uganda News
…Odwar in 2005, transforming a former colonial golf club to a place for training and exchange and to promote and celebrate local cultural achievements. Joyce and David aim to engage people in post-conflict Northern Uganda in the creative arts; resuscitate local arts, crafts and arts education and recover, heal and develop local cultural traditions. With Joyce Laker Director TAKS Centre in Gulu Although Steve and Patrick were not able to meet a…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…The story of how Singing Wells started…. After two years of planning, the Singing Wells project was launched in March 2011 with our first field visit to Malindi to record the music of the Mijikenda. So, how did Tabu Osusa, one of Kenya’s most successful record producers end up in a remote Kenyan village, teamed with me, an American businessman, and a sound engineer from Gateshead? The Singing Wells project is a result of a chance meeting between t…