Our journey to the Royal Drums: in the words of James Isabirye Story
…d that is how we ended up on this road. We filmed the drums yesterday and today we are going to see the Bigwala and discuss more lessons learned. Tomorrow, we are going to find out how much more there is to do.”…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Days 5-11:An Interview with Gregg Story
…When we gathered for big celebrations, the entire village took to the road to walk for miles to a central location. We walked all night. And we sang all night. The old people walking with the children, all of us singing. And now we have a nice road that probably gets us to that site in 20 minutes by car. But what have we lost? We’ve lost the connection that comes with all generations singing together, with laughter and joy. We sang every song we k…
The History Of Benga Music: A Report by Ketebul Music Story
…1963, the Ogara trio recorded the song “Selestina Juma” at the African Gramophone Stores, famously known as AGS, in Nairobi. Curiously, the song bears a distinct beat of ska, the precursor of today’s reggae. The trio’s guitar work was evidently inspired by influences from way beyond Luoland and was pretty much ahead of its time. It is possible that its ingenuity came from itinerant guitarists from the Congo, Uganda and Zambia who were already vis…
Central Uganda: Day 5 – Jinja to Kampala Story
…by Air Conditioning which is most welcome by those of us from the North but feared and mistrusted by those of us from Nairobi. We look forward to recording tomorrow in Kampala. Apparently there is a marathon. We shall provide the soundtrack….
Central Uganda: Day 4 – Jinja Story
…f the local casino for ‘the best fish in Uganda.’ Tabu was smartest of all, of course, and convinced the kitchen to cook fish in the traditional Kenyan style AND went to sleep early. We loved recording at the hotel so much that we convinced tomorrow’s group, the Nile Beat, to meet us in the hotel gardens tomorrow morning so we could record them before packing up for Kampala. That’s it, other than we enjoyed more spectacular thunderstorms and power…
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. …
Report from Womex 2013 News
…rd to the 27th of October. The trade fair and conferences were held at the Motorpoint arena, with the evening showcases and events held at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay. For our first visit to Womex, we booked a stand at the trade fair, with the main intentions being to spread the word of the project and the work we are doing in partnership with Ketebul Music. Ketebul have attended Womex before, and we would have benefited from the presence…
A recording studio which fits into the back of an SUV Story
…st Hotel in Kisoro, Uganda!) We can also combine the two recording units into one to increase the number of inputs, while still working off battery power. The laptops use Avid ProTools recording software – an industry standard for recording and music production. The microphones we have chosen are industry standard models used in studios the world over but, most likely, not seen in the villages of East Africa. The equipment has been carefully selec…
73,603 views on YouTube News
…est Uganda where we met and recorded the wonderful Batwa people. The music is performed by Kamuntu ‘Tiny’ Moses accompanied by our Influences artist Winyo. And in first place with over 21,700 views is ’71 Hours to Monday’- a global track from Abubilla Music featuring musicians from Sao Paulo, Nairobi and London which was produced to support the launch of the Singing Wells project in 2011. Keep watching! …
A new type of city Story
…n the distance. Despite this unconventional type of city,I loved it. There was certainly a lot going on and during the week Akello told us many stories of the vibrant buzz in Kampala. Every night there’s music to listen to somewhere in the packed hub of 180,000 people . The image above of the tin houses and the Uganda House of Commons in the background was one of the first pictures I took on the trip….
The Boy with the Headphones Story
…eadphones. It was on our second day in Kisoro when we travelled to the Mperwa Batwa community. Consisting of just a small number of families, the Mperwa have settled on a small area of borrowed land just a few kilometres from the town. At first glance the setting appeared to be spectacular, with the lush valley and terraced hills of local farms as a backdrop and the magnificent Virunga volcanos in the distance. But we were quickly struck by the…
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…the quality of the tribal music, but equally surprised to find how hard it was to access the music back in Britain. As the founder of Abubilla Music, I set out to find partners in East Africa who were committed to preserving the music. Through a series of e-mails that travelled the world, Tabu and I were brought together by Joyce Nyairo, then of the Ford Foundation, East Africa office. After several long e-mail exchanges and a few Skype calls, we…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…e real positive surprises. We were very lucky to record the Nanga with the Watmon Cultural Troupe and we had two great examples of the Ndara. But we were also able to recording amazing dancing… this is by far the best dancing we’ve seen. Q: Any observations as you compare this trip to others? A: For musicality, this trip rivals our trip to record the Batwa. In terms of the ‘health’ of traditional music, I think it is mixed, but frankly the traditi…
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…th Akello who headed back to Kampala, then our drivers William and Emmanuel, then to Vicki who headed off London. The rest of us will leave tomorrow for Nairobi and more recording… Jimmy Entebbe…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…an equal number of streets and houses piled up above us. There were cars, motorbikes and taxi’s driving past and planes flying overhead. Everything was for sale by everyone who walked by. No sleeping cattle. No flower beds. But, as always, there was wonderful music. The first group was the Adungu Cultural Troupe, masters of the Adungu. We had interviewed their leader on our ‘recce’ trip earlier. Here’s the band: We’ve had the odd adungu here and…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…village, but others need to hear his music. It is now almost midnight and we’ve recorded some fantastic music. The hotel restaurants are closed again, so we will be taking this group out for some food and then open up the studio tomorrow for the last day of this trip. We have asked the leader and his grandson back tomorrow for more discussions given they represent exactly what Singing Wells is trying to achieve. Until tomorrow then… Jimmy (Ketebul…