Kenya (Coast): Day 2 – recording in the village of Kibarani Story
…but far off the main road, wonderful quiet and cool. This is the goat pen to the right of the thatched hut where we recorded … The Music Groups Chechemeko Raha We recorded Chechemeko Raha first thing in the morning of March 30th. Led by Bahri wa katana, the group sang and danced in the Chechemeko style. Wonderful, pounding percussion, a great horn called the Gunda and massive kicking dancing called the mabumbu-mbu. Beautiful singing and dancing f…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…s. We must also work to make the songs, the heritage, the culture relevant to today’s artists. Part of that mission then is to help create an East African musical identity to rival the South and West African successes. We had a taste of what this could be on March 29th in Sati, when Winyo joined Bado and his father, Nyerere wa Konde, to do a new song. Bado participates in his dad’s group, but separately records his own music. Bado’s music is great…
On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
…n 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 …and his legen…
Nick Abonyo (the ‘clapper-man’) News
…y also had chickens for eggs and meat. The water is pure so you don’t need to buy it. People are very friendly in the village and there is still honour and politeness. They respect their elders, always greet an older person and stand up when they walk nearby. Nick likes going back home to visit because it’s much simpler, clean and safe. He graduated from High School in 2006 from Mirogi Boys High School and then went to University at the MOI Southe…
The Kalenjin & Kenya’s elite athletes News
…four years. The programme follows two main runners – David Rudisha who won the 800m in the Beijing Olympics and Edna Kiplagat who is the world cross country champion. They are focusing mainly on their coaching and what it takes to get to the Olympics. Both athletes will be running at London 2012. Most Kenyan runners come from the Rift Valley, in particular the town of Itan where there is a strong culture of running. The high altitude enables runne…
Best of Singing Wells 2011 News
…ording trips in Kenya and Uganda and also took the mobile recording studio to the Lake Turkana Cultural Festival. We’ve recorded over 150 songs from more than 25 local music groups and uploaded 36 videos of these performances to YouTube (so far). Every performance was unique and special – we loved them all – so picking just 10 songs for a ‘Best of’ album was not easy. Here are our final choices….it’s just a small reflection of what was an extraord…
A Year in Review March 2011 – March 2012 News
…nces sessions: The Luo Project, Lake Victoria, Kenya: We travelled to the Nyanza region, recording the Luo tribes, capturing the Nyatiti and Orutu in full action. Please read here for more. We also worked hard to find tribal musicians who were creating music that sounded wonderfully fresh and modern. Much of this we captured in what we called ‘Magic Minutes.’ Below, you will discover the Otacho Young Stars, with their modern take on the Or…
A message from Henry Neza at UOBDU News
…Now the non Batwa community agree that the Batwa can compete with others in many different fields if they are given the chance. All the best, Henry UOBDU, January 2012 …
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…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 new mobile recording equipmen…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…m mid last century and offer them in easy to read, listen and view mediums to today’s audiences, young and old, we were trying to fulfill our dreams of preserving our music heritage for prosterity. We have so far produced two packages and are currently working on three others simultaneously. Of course the world cannot live in the past and must move on, but there is no future without a past. Countries that have rich music industries and whose music…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…that I am the official ‘guy to choke!’). All in all though, when I made it to the studio, Andy gave me a detailed briefing on all the equipment and a quick run through on Pro Tools. It was pretty impressive, the equipment, two mobile units in easy to carry travel cases, each equipped with a MacBook Pro laptop running on pro Tools 9, MOTU traveler interface, a 500mb external hard drive, and 2 ART headphone amps. There was also a 2 bags with mic and…
What we learned from the pilot phase News
…e used a generator throughout and easily isolated it so no noise leaked on to the recordings. We also used three separate video recorders and all performed well. The Team: The Ketebul team were amazing and Andy did a great job of training folks quickly. The three sound engineers are all very experienced in the studio and quickly got up to speed with outside recording and the new equipment (hard ware and software). Pato and Winyo did a great job on…
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…