Day 4: Discovery of the Young Stars… Story
…ing three very different groups: the Otacho Young Stars, The Kanindi Jazz Band and Jose Kokeyo himself. The Music Groups The Otacho Young Stars The first group were four young men, playing in the Orutu style. First, let’s introduce them: from left to right, they were playing the Sanduku (Luo: Nyangile, which literally means ‘box’) Orutu, the metal ring (Kengele in Swahili and Ongeng’ in Luo) and a very happy backing vocalist (who also played the N…
Day 3: Homa Bay and the Kochia Dancers Story
…session with Winyo and Jesse on guitar: And that concluded the afternoon with the Kochia Dancers. The Singing Well Team 30 November 2011…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…tps://youtu.be/RfDGq0WpDMk https://youtu.be/CyAm45yHzE0 https://youtu.be/JY0a4W0-8ME https://youtu.be/8canGj0fxXo The Village as ‘set’ We try hard to bring you a sense of the beautiful villages that serve as our recording studios. Our recordings are delightfully accompanied by cows and chickens expressing their inner musical selves. And that’s okay, because that is how the music is played and enjoyed. The audience gather round the ‘stage’ with a t…
Day 1: The music of the Luo – starting at Rang’ala Village Story
…vA-sSgurw https://youtu.be/VOhmHrO8E7s https://youtu.be/jQsCd_U717c https://youtu.be/FOj8jQDOqhI https://youtu.be/qfB0NCW5v-0…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…en, however, but arrived about 7:10. We exited and then walked across the 100 metre ‘no man’s land’ to the Rwandan side, leaving the cars to come through separately. We check in with police and then go to Rwanda passport control to enter. This is now 7:20 or so and a big crowd is forming but luckily, as we were so early arriving,we got through okay. By about 7:40 we were done, but the cars were not yet allowed to pass, as the Uganda exit border ha…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…Kamuntu Moses Group. They only performed two songs for us but each lasted 20 minutes and involved frenetic dancing follows by a set of ‘James Brown style’ falls to the floor from the principal dancers, only to be revived again by the drummers. Simply amazing. Their drums were the key to their style – reviving them each time they fell from ‘James Brown’ exhaustion: https://youtu.be/1et4E7lKojA https://youtu.be/1BvCwhX2ctM The Kabahena Group had a…
Day 5 (much later): The Micyingo Group – guitar and bass! Story
…d song. But then, they switched gears and set up a smaller group of ‘bass’ and guitar and absolutely blew us away… They started as wonderful large group moving through a set of songs, including ‘Imparake Yagahinga’, the National Park song, which is a staple of the Batwa singing groups… This man was a wonderful dancer and he took centre stage. For us, he symbolised the essence of how life is for the Batwa today – a very hard life, but a life full o…
Gary Barlow, Ayub Ogada and our very own global song News
…sic 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 arou…
Day 5 (PM): The ‘Togetherness Group’ from Kanyabukunga Story
…he energy of each vigorous tribal dance. While the audio team for the day, Andy and Willie, deploy the essential sun shield for the mixing desk. They also found an additional use for the Pelicases, and Winyo’s guitar case, as mixing table and chairs! This little girl sensibly brought an umbrella for a sunshade……and happily accepted some much needed water: And here’s a very special young lady from this community – Fiona Nyiraguhirwa. Fiona has been…
Day 5: Recording the Mperwa Dancers Story
…her hut! The children like to get involved in what we are doing. These young boys enjoy exclusive access to the sound recording area, keeping a close eye on Andy and Willie and enjoying listening to the live performance through their headphones……
Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…e region. Most of the music is ‘trapped’ in remote villages – everyday in 100’s of villages across East Africa wonderful performances occur as the community celebrates, mourns and remembers through music. But few peopele are there to listen and each performance runs the risks of being forever lost. With our mobile studios, we are able to take the studio to them, working in their environment to capture as best we can the music and dance of their co…
Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
…and we were told we’d need to take our equipment ‘up the hill’ another 1,500 metres to the top. It was at least 500 metre rise in elevation. We told you about ‘our gear’ but forgot to mention that it is NOT light. There were 10 of us and 7 heavy bags, plus the generator. We tried to take the equipment up but were quickly done in my altitude and the slippery red mud of the region. Several young Batwa boys came down, grabbed our equipment and ran u…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…a songs are about the ‘Parcs.’ Kisoro is quite a small town, population 12,000. On a map we are about as far west and south in Uganda as you can go. Traveller’s Rest: We stayed at the Traveller’s Rest, a hotel famed for being a meeting place for gorilla observers. They write about this on their website: “In 1955 Travellers Rest was bought by Walter Baumgartel, and quickly became a meeting place for people interested in the mountain gorilla. Amongs…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…team in the studios for a day . Day 1: 11.11.19, Flight to Nairobi: Jimmy and Andy, Founder and Sound Engineer of Abubilla Music respectively, set out to Nairobi on Saturday for Nairobi. All good with flights, visas, bags and customs and we were greated by Tabu Osusa. Checked into Fairview, had the obligatory fries in a chip basket and crashed. Day 2: 11.11.20 Day in Ketebul Studio: Jimmy and Andy meet the SWP team at Ketebul Studios to coordinat…
Photos from the pilot phase Story
…We promised a final set of pictures and some further reflections. And we deliver. …
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…nted to be a pro studio engineer. He agreed and I joined as apprentice in 2005 and I was 23. The cultural side started in 2007. We started the spot light on Kenya music and other initiatives with Ketebul Productions, the Ministry of Culture and Alliance Francaise. We picked artists from all over Kenya to create an album. This is first move to culture things. Tabu was on the committee for Spot light and he would go out to select folks for the later…