Day 3: Monday, 2017 February 20th Story
…here the porters who were carrying massive loads to be shipped finally got to stop and rest. Near Bagamoyo is the village of Kimara Ngombe where we recorded Toroka Uje, a drum and dance band. Toroka Uje Toroka UjeWe arrived just as they were tuning their drums, by fire, and quickly interviewed a band member, Steven Jonas about drum names. Steven is also known as “Tomato”, a name given to him because he fits so well in any band he joins, like a tom…
Day 2: Sunday, 2017 February 19th Story
…songs and do an “Influences” session. This gave the village children time to get to know us and understand our mission. By the end they were singing along to all the songs. In addition to being a professional musician, Leo also teaches music to school children so he is a natural with kids. On all the songs that he did, he had the whole village singing and laughing. We learned about the Bi Kidude and Unyago style. Throughout this trip we will enco…
Day 1: Saturday, 2017 February 18th Story
…reating a specific post for him, so he could continue drumming for all visitors to the government. Because he was blind, he was invited to perform with specific women groups, of songs for women by women, of songs that no males could see. Every day we will tell more about Mzee Morris and his music (see picture below). We will also talk about his legacy and the attempts of his family and fans to keep his name and his music alive. Like all Singing We…
Our journey to the Royal Drums: in the words of James Isabirye Story
…knew Sebuwufu, a xylophone player who knew all about the drums and agreed to help me. Together, we found out that Peter Cooke had recorded the drums and we listened to some of these recordings. But then, Sebuwufu passed away in August 2015 and I realised I had a big problem now. He might have been the last person who knew the drums. But I remembered that Sebuwufu had heard of someone named Musisi, a drummer that had played at the palace. Musisi h…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Days 5-11:An Interview with Gregg Story
…my village life. 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 san…
The History Of Benga Music: A Report by Ketebul Music Story
…g’ Kabaselleh, a Luo pop artist who occasionally teamed up with Laban Juma Toto, formerly of the Hodi Boys band, to produce some of the best rumba melodies sang in the Luo language. Kabaselleh’s love for rumba saw him adopt the name of Congo’s celebrated pioneer musician, Joseph Kabaselleh ‘Le Grand Kalle.’ Some of Ochieng’s sons like Babu Kabaselleh and Reggie Kabaselleh are now well-known musicians in their own right, same to his siblings who ma…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 1 – Nairobi to Kiongwe to Muranga Story
…na ivinda (Chasing After Time). This song talks about the President’s call to stop corruption. The call to chase after time comes from the society that won’t condone these malpractices. Kaniini Kaseo The group is led by Mumbi Wambua, in Kyolo style. The group is also from Kamba ethnic community (ukambani wa kitui) and also from the village of Kiongwe. They have 16 members and were formed in 1980. They performed 3 songs, all of which use the Ileve…
Central Uganda: Day 6: Kampala to Entebbe Story
…tend to cause havoc with the rest of family members (please note similar story to song we heard about impact of deforestation on spirits. Lead vocalist this song is Hellen Flavia The back-up vocalist for this song was Diana Natero. And the wild dancer was Lubowa Bashir. Omwenge (a local brew): This is about how the local brew is made in stages and sets out each procedure to produce the brew. The lead vocalist is: Magic Moment: No vocals, and we c…
Central Uganda: Day 5 – Jinja to Kampala Story
…he only festival since 2005. Many people are performing around the country today due to those festivals. The group is very literate in music and we had a clear vision from 1990 of what we wanted to do. We are not doing badly and have a comfortable life from the performances. Some musicians who didn’t even have a bicycle not have houses. We are showing you can have a musical career. We are growing our knowledge and getting better at representing th…
Central Uganda: Day 4 – Jinja Story
…s also trying to start a gourd revolution so people start using them again to store liquids and stop using plastic) The coordinator and lead female vocalist in the group is Irene Nabirye. The group is made up of 6-7 Bigwala players and drummers, plus dancers and singers. They performed four songs and then we did a magic moment with their instruments; these were: Muwe Bwobona Asaba: When someone asks you kindly assist them Mperekera Omwana Womuremb…
Central Uganda: Day 3 – From Mbale to Iganga to Jinja Story
…aced – either has orphans or from severely disadvantaged homes. He started to go to University but found that gathering the funds for tuition each time extremely difficult. He had raised the funds for another semester and then asked himself, “Do I want another semester of education, with no promise I will be able to fund another, or can I take this money and start to make a difference?” So he took the money and invested in instruments for children…
Tracey Instrument Collection News
…Egyptian harps – with the cowhide that stretches over the top of the resonator used to keep it in place. Written on the side of the skin of this ennanga is ‘SSENDEGGE’ which may be the name of the actual maker of the harp, but the harp was obtained by the Traceys by the renowned ennanga player Evaristo Muyinda. The ennanga was formerly the instrument played by the master of music of the Kabaka (King) of the Bugandan people. He would compose songs…
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. …
Ketebul Music: A Year in Review News
…undation. Bridging the Gap: We have also completed Bridging the Gap. It is similar to Singing Wells and Spotlight, where we are trying to bridge the gap between generations by having young people work with older artists to sing traditional songs. The old can see the young sing their songs. And the young can hear traditional music. We used a lot of current hip hop artists to work with us. We are launching the CD at Kenya 50 in December and we also…
Report from Womex 2013 News
…roject and its aims and objectives, with listening stations for passers by to listen to the music we had recorded. We had a few instruments from our collection on display, and some even got played by some of our fellow Womexians as this photo from Louise shows: I gave an interview for Icelandic radio about the project. And around 150 people entered our competition to win an iPod shuffle – direct from one of our listening station. We’ll be making t…
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…