Day 7: In Nairobi – sponsors, blogs and strategy Story
…ensure the music we discover and capture from the field is truly relevant to new generations. We discussed in detail the twin mission of Singing Wells and the conflict inherent in our two goals. On one hand, we are scientists, collecting fossils to be stored and re-discovered. Here our obligation is to be systematic in our field visits, to represent the breadth of East African styles, to record fairly, and to not judge whether any particular grou…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…yre. This moved our departure time from the two hotels (Eldoret Club and Pine Tree) from 8am to about 9.30am. The tyre had a damaged tube that just wore out. We reassembled and headed off for a spectacular trip from an altitude of 2,800m down to 1,114m at one of the floors of the Great Rift Valley. The roads were more winding and steeper than on our trip to Rwanda last November but there was no rain and there were guard rails on the roadside which…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…ourney Most the Olympic gold medallists among Kenyan athletes live within 100 kms of Iten and it has become the legendary source of great long distance runners. Over 1,000 Kenyan runners train here and the roads are filled with athletes training for London 2012. In addition, over 300 foreigners train here, mostly from Europe. We went to the main training centre and interviewed a project manager about why so many people travel all this way to train…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…gic Moment focused on their extraordinary ‘pogo’ style dancing, jumping up to 20 inches off the dirt floor in the homestead. Throughout the recordings, a lovely woman of about 70 could not keep from dancing. We loved it, although the owner of the homestead kept trying to have her sit down. She would start by sitting with the group and moving her arms to the beat. Then she would begin to sing, and then she would stand and sway, and then she would b…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…He was born in Mata Hospital and sent to Maseno Highschool, graduating in 2000. During school he loved Alpha Blondy, a reggae artist from the Ivory Coast, but also loved Hip Hop. He took a gap year and the joined a university to take computer classes in 2002-3. He tried to join the Air Force but his mother wouldn’t let him sign up so he joined Creative Edge a graphics design firm, and then Smoke and Mirrors a multi-media company in 2003-2004. In 2…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…ic labels on two separate continents. Tabu Osusa founded Ketebul Music in 2007 with a goal to record and promote traditional East African music. Tabu laments the fact that the music heritage of the region is being eroded. He says, ‘For reasons I can’t fully explain, contemporary East African music has lost touch with its tribal roots. Our most popular musicians find far more inspiration in western music than they do with East African music. I worr…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…ally two sticks on the ground played by two sticks. Tabu first met Ben in 2007, when working on Spotlight on Kenya Music Vol.4. He sang a song called ‘Kiseete’ on the album. (Interestingly, our second group today, Chebonet, played Kiseete, which is clearly a communal song of this community). Ben recorded 8 tracks with us, including a fantastic Influences track with Eddie Grey, a musician who joined Ketebul Music in 2011. https://youtu.be/ot3xNHqm7…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…rough Nakuru and Eldoret on the way. Last night, we agreed a late fee of 1,000 bob a minute for anyone arriving at the studio after 9 am. Money talks and the whole crew were there by 09.00. Everyone. That‘s the good news. The bad news was no one brought a key for the studio, forcing Tabu to have to drive home and back. We left an hour later. Drive good, but long (roughly 400 kms) with a few little thunder storms and the normal fun with roadworks a…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…icle published in Business Daily Africa: http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Where+the+world+got+real+flavour+of+Kenya+in+London/-/1248928/1480860/-/djb5mf/-/index.html Photos from Kenya House …
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…The plan tomorrow is to travel up the Great Rift Valley to Kitale, about 400 km northwest of Nairobi. In Kitale we’ll record the Sabaot. The next day we will drive to Kapenguira to record the Pokot. After that we go to Eldoret then onto Iten and Kapsowar to record the Marakwet and Keiyo. The last day to go to L Baringo to record the Tugen. Tabu is not sure what to expect of the tribal music in the villages we are visiting but he is always surpris…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…will become clear later). The only way to make absolutely sure of that is to go into ArcMap and look at the attribute table of the shapefile (that’s basically the data that makes the shapefile look how it does), and check the names of the counties. To do this open the map, which is saved at C:\How To Map\How to Map 1, or wherever you put it. Then right-click on GBR_adm2 and select Open Attribute Table. This will open a box with the attribute tabl…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…called How To Map 1, so the address where it is saved is C:\How To Map\How to Map 1. To get our country outline into ArcMap we need to Add Data. To do this either click File > Add Data > Add Data or select the Add Data icon. This will open a box; click this icon till you reach ‘Home – Documents/ArcGIS’: From here click on Folder Connections. This is where you will connect folders from elsewhere on your computer to ArcMap. Click on this icon: and s…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…for the night. We say a quick hello and arrange to meet for breakfast at 7.00am. Tomorrow we are off to Uganda. MONDAY Tabu, Ketebul Music’s founder, arrives at the Fairview to meet us. He’s made the last minute arrangements for my flight to Kigali today, so I’m very grateful to him. We’ve never met before, only spoken on the phone and emailed, but he’s so welcoming I feel I know him already. The complete Singing Wells team congregates at Nairobi…
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…Western Kenya, we made a decision to bring some of the Batwa singers back from Kisoro to Uganda. We spent Saturday and Sunday recording them and the results are fantastic. The whole way back from Kisoro to Kisumu we talked about the Batwa and how much we loved the singers. We thought about bringing them to Nairobi sometime in the future. We then decided the future is now and called Henry Neza to see if he would be willing to travel with a selecti…
How To (Arc)Map News
…check out their non-profit organisations’ scheme, which allows registered charities access to software for free. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE FIRST POST…
Day 4: Discovery of the Young Stars… Story
…of the roots of Bob Dylan… https://youtu.be/iRQlHbyzoKM https://youtu.be/9Qx_vs2Uw-U https://youtu.be/bmFyePat-VY https://youtu.be/HRXyT1czwG8 https://youtu.be/4jnrLn92SxA And with the Jose recording, we officially finished our November field trip, which took us to Rwanda, Uganda and Lake Victoria. Tomorrow we head back to Nairobi where we will be greeted by the Batwa singers and musicians we invited back to record in the studio. They have been tr…