Meeting Ketebul: an interview with Tabu News
…night, it was dangerous. The road was narrow, unmarked and I didn’t like it. We said after this we wouldn’t do it again. Now we hardly drive at night. As for the best? Every moment is the best when it comes to Singing Wells! What can we look forward to from Singing Wells and Ketebul this year? We’re going to be doing a monthly show in Nairobi to promote Ketebul music. More details to follow. And of course we’ve got this year’s field visit to the v…
Our top 5 Singing Wells songs for March News
…oup on a trip to record the music of the Luo in Western Kenya in December 2011. They were later invited to Ketebul Studios in Nairobi to form part of our influences series. I love this song because it’s cheery and upbeat. It’s the kind of song everyone should listen to when they wake up to start the day with positive vibes. 2. Ochieng Nelly – Osare I’ll admit, a few weeks ago I knew very little about the history of Benga. But the more I’ve found o…
The lovely painted faces of the Marakwet tribes in the Rift Valley Story
…This is one of the beautiful singers from the Sagat Traditional Dancers; we recorded them on March 7, 2012 during our trip through the Rift Valley, Kenya. Her white dots represent the soil and the harvest; their beads are traditionally given to them after female circumcision. These dancers had walked over 50 kms the night before to make sure they arrived in time for the recording….
Current Leading Figures News
…ol services, annual university graduation ceremonies to a crowd of over 40,000 people, and perform every Wednesday to each other during a recital hour. However, when asked if they record their own music, James says “We lack good equipment to record the music professionally but it is an idea that requires serious and immediate consideration. ” NACOFU, which he is a member of, is attempting to address this problem – to document folk music – but is c…
Amone Watmon Matthew Story
…with Matthew, which we include here: Matthew was born on the 25th November 1951 in Kipgum district, Awedi village in the north of Uganda. He lived there until 1992, when he moved to Kampala, due to the rebel fighting. He started a small group of dancers, performing Acholi traditional dance. He learnt to play music from his grandfather in his village. His aim is to teach his children (even those that are not his own) the music of his heritage. We a…
Music Depositories and Archives around the World News
…training in performance of African music. Diane Thram became Director in 2005 and, under her leadership, an online listening library has been created, in line with the cutting edge of content access, to allow anyone to listen to Hugh Tracey’s recordings, with work currently being done to also make the Dave Dargie and Andrew Tracey Collections available for online access. There are over 12000 30 second recordings from the 1930s, 40s and 50s. The a…
Singing Wells in Numbers…. News
…Andy did a litte homework for this one: Number of recordings of groups: 374 (this does not include other recordings like Magic Moments, Influences, etc…) Number of groups recorded: 83 Number of hours of music: 27 hours and 30 minutes. …
James Isabirye and Tabu Osusa Discuss East African Music News
…ar. Or help your children to be educated. Once you got a job, you knew not to lose it. Now people work for a little bit and then quit and they complain about how hard life is. I tell them, “Why did you stop the job? You just lost a home, or education for your children. Why did you lose that?’ But we don’t celebrate someone that works hard. We celebrate someone that is trying to make a quick buck. We want to take short cuts. So we sing American mus…
Ketebul Music: A Year in Review News
…ong driving spells we talked to Tabu about what Ketebul has been doing in 2013. Here is the voice of Tabu. “A New Studio: Our first big milestone is a new studio. We refurbished our studio and brought in new equipment. We used our own savings for this to build a better studio and are very proud. Nick Lader, a sound engineer from the UK, helped improve the studio with bass traps, etc… so we could really do a better job. Nick was very hands on and d…
Report from Womex 2013 News
…ows: I gave an interview for Icelandic radio about the project. And around 150 people entered our competition to win an iPod shuffle – direct from one of our listening station. We’ll be making the draw soon. Cards in the Kalabash We were pleased to host a few meetings for our friend Guy Morley who used our stand as a meeting place. We were delighted also to find that there are quite a few other people undertaking similar projects in Colombia, Ca…
Obuell-Lira and the Macedonia Band Story
The Singing Wells field visit to Uganda in December 2012 was to record the music of the northern tribes including the Iteso, Acholi and Alur. Here we introduce you to The Macedonia Band from the village of Obuell-Lira near Soroti Our story: recording the inspirational Macedonia Band We were recording in Northern Uganda, in the Teso region, scene of multiple rebel movements, land of terrible atrocities. That was a decade ago, of course, and the la…
SWP Uganda 2013 – our proposed itinerary News
…urs team have always been excellent hosts. On our final day of the Uganda 2012 trip we had an very special afternoon in the garden recording the wonderful Watmon Group with our ‘Influences’ artist Akello. We are very grateful to Gorilla Tours for their generous sponsorship of the Singing Wells project this year providing us with a Land Cruiser and supporting our accommodation costs at the Guesthouse. Day 2: Entebbe to Masaka – Baganda music Our fi…
Clowns Story
…On our first recording day during the Northern Uganda Field trip 2012 we had the pleasure of working in front hundreds of children who slowly climbed a tree to watch the proceedings. They were delighted by the cameras and we had a lot of fun showing them their smiling faces. This little boy was the biggest show off….
The Birara Batwa Community Story
The Singing Wells field visit to Uganda in November 2011 was to record the music of the Batwa people. Here we introduce you to the first Batwa community we met on that memorable trip – The Birara Our story: Singing Wells & The Birara Community We left Kisoro in the early morning to travel to the Birara community. The journey by road took about one and a half hours – a distance of about 35km. Just outside Kisoro we picked up an elderly lady from t…
Group of the Month – Otacho Young Stars News
We are pleased to announce that the Group of the Month for October 2013 are the Otacho Young Stars. We first encountered the group on our trip to record the music of the Luo in Western Kenya in December 2011. Up to that point, we had had a bad day – which included Andy taking the collected rainfall of the past hour, in the face from the roof of the tent…. We then moved from our original recording location to the DRC – not the Democratic Republic…
The Key to Sustainable Aid in Africa? Perhaps we should follow the music. News
My first field report for Singing Wells was March 29, 2011, reporting on our first day along the Kenyan Coast. We were in a beautiful village, surrounded by dozens of African children (all brothers and sisters of different mothers), and listening to stunning music. We knew then that a strong community and village was the foundation for great music. We now believe great music is the foundation of a strong community and village. And this makes all…