The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…g WorldMap, an interesting way of visually displaying data. Here is a shot of the map below, the highlighted regions are the areas in which layers of information have been embedded. When accessing the map, this is what your screen would look like. The map, which you can access here, is a result of a platform developed by Harvard University. WorldMap is a great platform for a project like this for several reasons. It is free and open source which m…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…ildren gathering in groups of 2 to 5 to wave as we ride past, small groups of young men sitting in chairs beneath large trees greeting us with squinted eyes and ne’er a smile, women of all shapes and sizes on 20 kilometre walks with every household item imaginable on their heads and everywhere the magical colors of green grass against terracotta mud that seeps up the walls of every dwelling. Baboons and other monkeys hanging about on the sides of…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…t minute shopping for essential supplies (alcohol, sunglasses, papers) and then took the train to C57, where we boarded our flight and left pretty much on time. Jimmy sat next to Andrew who lives in Kampala and married to a Uganda woman with whom he’s had a one year old son. He was passionate about West African music and did a paper on drumming in Ghana. So Vicki switched seats with Jimmy and talked to Andrew about the Singing Wells project for an…
African Strings: The Nyatiti and The Adungu News
…r back in November 2011, while the Singing Wells team discovered the Music of the Luo, they recorded the beautiful sound of the nyatiti, eventually purchasing one for our studio back home! There’s one on the right. On Day 11 of that field trip in Siaya, Kenya, they saw two nyatiti groups, first The Joginda Boys, featuring Oganda Joginda. Watch and listen: The second nyatiti group featured Okumu K’Orengo, another fantastic player of the nyatiti. We…
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
Today is the final day of the full team working on the Kalenjin Field visit. Of course, all of us will continue in London and Nairobi to produce songs and videos of the trip. In addition to writing blogs, organising strategy through 2014, sorting through about 10,000 receipts of expenses (we run a very tight shop, thanks to Steve’s leadership), we welcome Ben into the studio to record. The Otacho Young Stars stayed the morning as well. We had a f…
Background on the Music of Northern Uganda News
…bout the music we’d be discovering. Gulu: First we will discover the music of the Acholi tribe in Agago, where a variety of different styles of music are performed, each with there own different purposes. Click here to learn about the Acholi People. 1. We will hopefully see a performance of the Bwola, a traditional royal dance, performed in a circle, where the men drum around the outside and women dance in the middle without drums (typically in Ug…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…lways found this song amazing – the group is deadly serious in their thank you to the manager. But in many ways, we kept thinking it is sad that they find it so rare for someone to essentially do his job that they need to write a song. Johnnie, Bishop and Eddie all joined in to support them in the studio with Winyo and Nina working on back up vocals. They were a huge amount of fun, smiling throughout it all. Other than recording, we continued to b…
Day 7: In Nairobi – sponsors, blogs and strategy Story
…the Singing Wells Strategy through 2014. In discussions with sponsors, one of the major themes was how to 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 rep…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…ff 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 made it all feel safer. The Journey Jimmy was in the Jeep with the GPS and kept the table below and felt strongly it should be published! Please note how we hit a ‘floor’ and the climb…
Alur Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…and Arua districts in Uganda, but also reside in the Congo. They are part of the Luo group. Population: 460,000 History: Alur society has adopted a socio-hierarchical system of politically independent chiefdoms, which was one of the only sytems that was unaffected by the Ugandan ban on traditional monarchies in 1966. Language: Part of the Western Nilotic language group, their language is closely related to Acholi. Some Alur speak Lendu. Origins:…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…t there is also a mystique to the place and foreign runners feel like some of the magic might rub off on them.” Because the Olympics were approaching the place was filled with runners and documentary makers, all telling the story of this beautiful place. In fact, we were confused for a CNN crew! You can read more about Iten and its famous athletes here: Running with the Kenyans From Iten there is a beautiful tarmac road that leads to Nokuru travel…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
It’s our fourth day of the trip (second recording day in the field) and, despite difficulties with internet connections, we are still managing to keep you posted on our progress and had an extraordinary moment when we received a Skype call from Andy in the UK and he actually joined in a live Influences session! The Location We woke up after a second night in Kitale and drove 56 km to Kapenguria to record the Pokot tribes. The country side was bea…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…ars.’ He pointed out that Francis Sembagare from the Birara Dancers (Music of the Batwa) was closer to Hip Hop than much of today’s music. And he also points out the Joginda Boys (recorded for Singing Wells in Kisumu, Lake Victoria) were amazing and more modern than most music today. The Clapperboard Today was the first day we used the ‘clapperboard’. First a little background to this…… Singing Wells has always been about the music so our initial…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…ed in March 2011 with our first field visit to Malindi to record the music of the Mijikenda. So, how did Tabu Osusa, one of Kenya’s most successful record producers end up in a remote Kenyan village, teamed with me, an American businessman, and a sound engineer from Gateshead? The Singing Wells project is a result of a chance meeting between two music labels on two separate continents. Tabu Osusa founded Ketebul Music in 2007 with a goal to record…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…very traditional and the way of singing is very unique to the Sabaot clan of the Kalenjin. The guitar is called a burkandit, and is a homemade guitar somewhat resembling the Nyatiti of the Luo. He was joined by a percussionist who played the karachimek, which is essentially 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. (Inter…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…the exposure to different cultures – even my own. I have never heard a lot of the tribal music, even around my own villages. Our trip to Nyanza in November 2011 blew me away. I have never heard music like that. My favourite was the performance from Okumu K’Orengo. I was so moved. He was singing about death, about his own father, about his grandfather. He forced you to think about all the people you’ve lost. Secondly, I love the confidence it gives…