Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
…village we passed beautiful lakes nestled amongs the green hills – here’s one that we effectively drove completely around to get to the village. This is one of the many views of Lake Chou – 15 of our 23 kilometre drive which took us around the whole lake. Our second introduction to ‘Batwa Fitness’ was on arrival at the village. The road stopped and we were told we’d need to take our equipment ‘up the hill’ another 1,500 metres to the top. It was…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…ical Pelicases with Apple Laptops, Motu Mixer, Hard Drive Back ups and Headphone Amps. With these, we can record 1 large session with 6-8 inputs, or two separate sessions with smaller groups. SW3 and AM2: These are two Pelicases, with Canon 5D, 7D and 60D camera/lenses and 12 32GB flash cards, plus multiple lenses to video the tribal dances. A major lesson from the March Pilot and Lake Turkana Cultural Festival was that we had under-estimated the…
News from the Batwa in Kisoro News
…and our friends Gasoda holding the pot its real. Gasoda looks exactly the way he always appears The Batwa who went to Nairobi were happy to see themselves in photos once again. Thanks to UOBDU and Singing Wells for sending this Album to us See how we were dressed it is exactly the one I was addressed. In the Camera you can see everything, One was showing another one and said, See this one, you can not know that he is the husband of Nkumbuye, he i…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…on a trip. I didn’t want to do it. I made it clear I would only do it in a way that was for Africa and not some one off experience with no benefit except to ourselves. But we did a great job launching the new Ketebul website and designing Singing Wells. So we then booked the flights to visit the Ketebul team. We met with Guy in UK and then flew down My first time out of Europe. Ngadia met me at airport. I was very nervous and didn’t know what to e…
Kenya (Coast): Day 3 – our final recording day Story
…water and spices. Some final shots at our last village. Enjoy…. Winyo and the kids… That’s enough for now. There’s 150 pictures more for every one we show, but the internet is too slow to keep posting Jimmy…
Kathy’s reflections on her Singing Wells experience News
…to travel with. When things went wrong like our car breaking down or microphones not working, they took it in their stride and came up with solutions. A great bunch of people. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and heard a lot of wonderful music. In particular it was wonderful to see the fusion of old tribal music with contemporary music in the field and in the studio in Nairobi. The one thing that I learned on this trip was how important it is to tal…
Interview with Fifty Cows – fixer for Singing Wells News
…in the path of the Pokot. This acted as a ceasefire and the Pokot would always turn back. I asked why the women didn’t always use their belts and Fifty said they would only use them when the men weren’t adhering to the rules of war and it became too violent. Both tribes encouraged intertribal marriage. For example, Fifty’s parents were from different tribes. They felt this would promote peace. In 1992, when he was just 16, he was shot in the fore…
Kenya (Coast): Day 2 – recording in the village of Kibarani Story
…g and dancing in the Koringongo style. They used the Marimba, a wooden xylophone. Wonderful lead vocals, very Islamic sound… 4 the Mzinga, featuring the Marimba …with lots of the children The Children Our routine is now established. We drive into a village and meet the musicians and begin setting up. We are about 10 folks and the musicians are another 10-15. We then start the first song and by the end of the session we are generally surrounded b…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…have been produced in LA. We asked him to do a song and he started singing one of his about a guy essentially asking a girl to be his… very urban hip hop and something you’d find in most major cities. Tabu suggested that his dad join him and in traditional voice act as the girl’s father warning her of the danger of seduction. Winyo joined to continue the warnings of the father. A short simple song, but suddenly absolutely magic, unique, and only s…
On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
…dinary talent in the room. 50 years of East African music, the hand-off of one generation to the next. Massive respect for each others talent and an amazing evening that only Tabu could pull off. Amazing voice: We recorded video and used the mobile recording studio to record most of the concert. We’ll post this later. In the meantime, a couple of pictures: Winyo warms up with the Swiss Bone Guitar The Legendary Ayub Ogado …and his legendary goatee…
The Kalenjin & Kenya’s elite athletes News
…he was particularly impressed by Ben Kisinja who had a unique and animated way of performing. He played the pokondit, the guitar-like instrument, very well. She felt the older men were more soulful and she liked to hear their stories. She was also surprised how far some of the musicians had come to perform. She was talking to some of the singers and, for example, the young woman in Ben Kisinja’s group came from Kitale, about an hour’s drive away….
A Year in Review March 2011 – March 2012 News
…ecessary expertise and equipment to do full field recordings (up to 8 microphones and 3 digital cameras) throughout East Africa. PROJECT BENEFITS TO EAST AFRICA : We are on a journey. When we started, we knew the critical importance of capturing the cultural legacy of East Africa with tribal music, before it was lost to all of us forever. We were reminded of the importance of this in December, when one of the most extraordinary musicians we’ve rec…
Recording music & dance of the Batwa News
…place to support their communities and help them reclaim their traditional way of life. The United Organisation for Bawta Development (UOBDU) was founded in 2000 to address land problems and develop sustainable livelihoods. UOBDU has identified four key areas of support: land & housing; education and adult literacy; income generation and forest access & benefit-sharing. By way of example, the Batwa Cultural Trail is a new initiative launched by th…
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
…g: Group 1: Mwenzele-Nyerere wa Konde Music Club We later recorded one of our first ‘Influences’ sessions with the Group Leader, his son (Baddo) and Winyo, one of the Ketebul artists who came with us. Here’s a rough un-mixed sample of their collaboration: The second group was Zaire ndindingwa, led by Fundi bin Kalale, in the ndindingwa style. They used the filimbi (a type of whistle). Group 2: Zaire ndindingwa Kibarani: We recorded behind…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…o allow them to undertake the trip to this remote area of North West Kenya, 800 km from Nairobi and home to the Turkana and Samburu tribes and the original ‘singing wells’. When Steve Kivutia (Ketebul Music) presented the idea of recording music at the Festival to the AMF, it seemed a perfect fit with the objectives of the Singing Wells project and the trustees were happy to approve a grant to cover the costs of travelling to the Festival with the…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Pato News
…e Malindi is famous for tuk tuks (3 wheeled motorbike taxis) I jumped into one with Winyo and Jesse and headed back to Paradise Hotel. Day 4: Off to Kilifi Everyone was glad to checkout of Paradise Hotel but what was funny was the look Andy gave the receptionist at Paradise Hotel when he asked us to visit again. The day’s program was long because we had four groups to record, two in Kilifi and the two in Kaloleni, Mombasa. We left early picked Dec…