A message from Henry Neza at UOBDU News
…g Wells visit to Kisoro there was an opportunity for some of the Batwa to experience life outside their community when they visited the Ketebul Music studios in Nairobi for more recordings. During this trip they were able to interact with the Ford Foundation and benefit from new clothes and shoes, which improved their social status among the dominant tribes here. This gave them confidence and changed their behaviour. Now the non Batwa community ag…
Sad News from Kenya News
…ear to all of those keeping track with the Singing Wells project. Some sad news. Okumu K’Orengo, one of the musicians we recorded in Kenya as part of the Singing Wells trip, had passed away. He was a master of the Nyatiti and performed for us in the village of Aluny, his final track on the day being a funeral dirge. We send our sympathies and condolences to his family and friends at this sad time. Here is an audio excerpt and video from his perfor…
AMF receive grant to fund Batwa recordings News
…tage. The SWP will literally put the Batwa back on the map as we add their music and dance to the ‘Discover the Music’ map on the Singing Wells website. We will make the recordings available to other NGOs and ethnomusicologists and we hope this will, in time, provide new opportunities and sources of income for the Batwa. In planning our visit, we have worked closely with UOBDU and the Forest Peoples Programme to ensure that the Bawta community rec…
Recording music & dance of the Batwa News
…iteracy; income generation and forest access & benefit-sharing. By way of example, the Batwa Cultural Trail is a new initiative launched by the Uganda Wildlife Authority and UOBDU. The trail will provide an income for Batwa and it is the first initiative to afford them a stake in the conservation and management of the National Park which was once their home. The Batwa love to sing and dance, and often do so spontaneously. The Batwa in th…
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
…st ‘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 one of the long houses under two great trees, which sheltered us from the sun. Click here…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…s and crafts, dances and music to each other and to visitors. Combined with the stunning geographical characteristics and the very limited general knowledge on the Lake Turkana region, the presentation of the cultural traditions makes the Festival a unique and fascinating experience for everyone involved.’ Steve’s objective is to record the music of all 10 performing groups. All the material will be taken back to the Ketebul Studios for archiving…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Pato News
…usic and our director Tabu who had arrived. I was introduced to Jimmy and honestly I was expecting him to be a much older guy. I had met Andy before. Back to my first encounter with my new love. I had read about her on the internet and I met her before through a friend but he never introduced me to her but he gave me her name [CANON 5D CAMERA] Jimmy kept a close eye on her and he asked me to stop drooling all over the place because she belonged to…
Reflections on the pilot phase by Willie Bembe News
…id from a distance. DAY 5 The drive back to Nairobi seems shorter than the one to Malindi. Get to Nairobi and enjoy a nice Ethiopian dinner at the Habesha restaurant. Everyone is very tired so we let the big boys have their meeting at the Fairview Hotel. DAY 6 It’s our guest’s last day and we enjoy having last recording sessions with them at the studio. The “seventeen hour” song is very catchy and Jimmy is dancing all over the place as an African…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…awn shop. And any field job with local respondents needs a “fixer”. We had one in one Deche. Interesting fellow. He made sure we got the groups we were seeking. But by late afternoon of each day, he didn’t seem quite sober to me. On our last night, he almost dragged me out of the hotel for a “final night out” – he was buying, he repeated over and over again. I have never been known to refuse an offer for good old Tusker. But I fled. Deche, don’t w…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…t to get to Malindi and some food. We made it to Malindi around 9.30pm. No one knew the exact location of Paradise Hotel and The Leader and The Guide’s GPS couldn’t help us either. Luckily for us, while we were refueling car number 02 at Watamu, a friend of Pato’s who lives in Malindi just happened to come by the station for fuel too. He took us to Paradise Hotel (which turned out to be a disappointment for all), where we found Tabu and his team h…
What we learned from the pilot phase News
…recording studios performed flawlessly and the sound we captured is truly extraordinary. We played back the songs to everyone that would listen and to a person people were amazed at the quality of the recordings. There’s the odd cow, or screams of kids raising around the village, but goodness -that is what this is all about. We used a generator throughout and easily isolated it so no noise leaked on to the recordings. We also used three separate v…
Meet the team from Ketebul Music News
…two Ketebul artists that will be heavily involved in the first phases. Winyo doubles as photographer, but led the ‘fusion’ work in our Pilot Phase and will lead our ‘Influences’ project’. Winyo will lead ‘Influences’ This is an extraordinary team, with huge passion for Singing Wells. Our goal is not simply to ‘archive’ the traditional music of East Africa – it is about making it relevant to new generations and contemporary music. This is…
Testing the mobile recording equipment News
…y. Check out Jimmy’s blog on their progress: Quick report from Sao Paulo Next stop, Kenya. In March, Jimmy and Andy are taking the recording equipment to Nairobi, teaming up with Ketebul Music to fully test everything in the field in advance of the village tour in November. Tabu Osusa is putting together the itinerary and the plan is to travel to the coast, near Mombasa, to record the music of the Mijikenda – a Bantu tribe made up of 9 sub-tribes,…
More on the launch of the Ketebul Music website News
…ging Wells funds. Here are a few words from Wesley Burden about the challenge we gave them…… “Ketebul Music required a website design that delivered a strong sense of the colourful music of East Africa and the traditions that their non-profit organisation aims to help preserve. Using our experience from working with Abubilla Music and Sideways Recordings we were well placed to understand the functionality that a music organisation needs in their w…
Ketebul Music website launched News
Great news to report today. Initial funds to the Singing Wells project have been used to complete our first objective and we are delighted to report on the launch of the new Ketebul Music website. When Abubilla Music and Ketebul Music first came together we decided the most pressing need was for a dynamic website which would show the work of the Ketebul artists in their full glory and we think we’ve succeeded in our goal. Take a good look around…
SWP Launch Day News
…e a guest at a reception for Kenya National Day hosted by the High Commissioner in London, Mr Ephraim Ngare. It was a wonderful occasion, with a motivating speech from Mr Ngare about Kenya’s progress and the special relationship it shares with the UK. It made me feel very positive about the Singing Wells project and the connection we are making between London and Nairobi through music. So a big thank you to the High Commission, particularly to Wan…