Interview: fusion band Ndoto Afrika News
…Why is the group called Ndoto Afrika? We represent a dream. A dream every African youth aspires to achieve. We represent the African Dream. Ndoto means ‘dream’ in Swahili, a local African language and Afrika is the Swahili way of spelling Africa. Why are you interested in branching from purely urban music to a traditional/ urban mix? The love for our motherland. There is a popular saying that ‘others call it the ‘Dark Continent’ but to us it’s ju…
Discussions with Peter Cooke: ethnomusicologist and Ugandan music expert News
…eceived my first lesson in playing the Kiganda amadinda xylophone from the South African musicians Andrew and Paul Tracey before their evening show Wait a Minim.” “My work in Uganda led me to begin exploring that country’s traditional music initially with the aim of collecting useful materials for teaching purposes. That exploration has continued since then, apart from during the chaos of the periods of the rule of Amin and the Second Obote regime…
Before They Pass Away News
…frica’s music. Not only do we want to sustain the musical heritage of East Africa, we want to promote it in today’s world. With this in mind, we’ve been following the work of British photographer Jimmy Nelson with interest, who spent four years travelling to meet and photograph some of the world’s last surviving tribes. His book, Before They Pass Away, is a fascinating insight into these communities’ ways of life. Nelson’s breathtaking photographs…
Central Uganda: Day 3 – From Mbale to Iganga to Jinja Story
…rted with an Influences Song with Jacinta – they performed the traditional African song, Malaika. American Farewell: After this they performed American Farewell (originally called “Wimoweh” and popularised as “A lion sleeps tonight”). Altawale. This was a great combination of heavy brass, traditional drums, marching band drums and a good old fashioned American Marching Band Twirler, straight from Music Man. Here’s their music: We loved what Julius…
Singing Wells surpasses 500,000 YouTube hits! News
…vering, recording, archiving and celebrating the traditional music of East Africa on this channel and we couldn’t be more grateful for your support. Our YouTube channe l features videos from our trips across Kenya and Uganda, including visiting the tribes of the Kenyan Coast, Central and Eastern Uganda, our work to share the music of the Batwa community and the Luo community. We’ve told the story of repatriating Kenya’s music heritage after 50 yea…
Sponsor a Singing Wells recording session News
…een planning our next trip to record more of the traditional music of East Africa to take place in November 2015. Our Singing Wells trips generally last about 10 days, depending on how much ground we’re trying to cover. We also organise a pre-trip ‘recce’ where a smaller team visits the country/ region in advance to pre-record groups, identify key talent and make all the preparations to ensure we don’t waste a moment on the full trip later in the…
Rediscovering Afropop and its influences News
…newer genres form. The same works in the opposite direction of course, and African popular music has emerged as a combination of traditional African music and an adoption of certain elements – particularly some musical instruments and recording techniques – from Western music. Last week I was in a taxi driving through Nairobi’s Westlands and talking to a girl about Sauti Sol – one of Kenya’s most popular bands. She described their music as ‘Afropo…
Discussions on music and culture with a young Kenyan News
…… it’s not ‘cool’. Do you think losing the cultural music heritage of East Africa is a shame? It’s a massive shame! But the western style of living is so appealing – just look at how Nairobi is evolving; it’s all coffee shops and Nike trainers and rooftop bars. The Singing Wells Project ideologically makes sense to try and preserve our musical culture and traditions, but trying to make it relevant and interesting to young people is going to be a r…
Our top 5 Singing Wells songs for March News
…ry song on the site, getting to know the amazing traditional music of East Africa! It was tough to pick, but for my first blog post I thought I’d share my top 5 songs so far. 1. Otacho Young Stars – Amilo Love The Singing Wells team first encountered the Otacho Young Stars group on a trip to record the music of the Luo in Western Kenya in December 2011. They were later invited to Ketebul Studios in Nairobi to form part of our influences series. I…
The repatriation of Kenya’s music heritage News
…gh Tracey. The repatriation of these recordings began in August, during a two-week pilot project in Kenya’s Rift Valley led by Prof Diane Thram, Director of the International Library of African Music (ILAM) in South Africa and the team from Ketebul Music, supported and funded by The Abubilla Music Foundation as part of the Singing Wells project. Read Bill Odidi’s article about the August project here….
Singing Wells is on Bozza! News
…way for audiences to discover and listen to traditional East African musicians and music groups recorded by Singing Wells. Head over to our Bozza page here. About Bozza “Bozza is a plug & play solution for musicians, poets, photographers & film makers to promote and sell their digital products to their fans throughout Africa. The platform is available to emerging and established artists from around the continent and can be easily accessed by visi…
Hitching a ride Story
…icture on our journey from Kisoro to the Birara community while we were in south west Uganda documenting and recording the music of the Batwa. It’s about 35kms by road, most of which is uphill, following the winding road through the stunning, lush countryside. This guy was lucky enough to have a bike and took advantage of the passing lorry. Most people seemed to be on foot and many of the Batwa make the arduous journey to town three times a week,…
Ten More Singing Wells Stories News
…The Otacho Young Stars and the Sadness of Joyous Praise: Travelling around Africa you always pray a little to the gods above that Africans would enjoy the benefits of a few more responsible folks with power, in power. And then we ran into the Otacho Young Stars, one of the hippest and happenin’ Luo bands around (who we discovered and brought back the studios to record). Here is the most simple, but to me, one of the most profound African songs eve…
Current Leading Figures News
…elebrate life.” Hence, providing a creative space was a priority for Odwar, as even though Northern Uganda has been riddled with war for decades, he sees the how effective using “traditional methods of creating peace and reconciliation” are, citing the use of arts in South Africa as a way of peace building in the post-apartheid era and the use of theatre in the 1990s to settle and integrate war veterans in Kabale, Uganda. For Odwar, art has the ab…
Music Depositories and Archives around the World News
…as originally founded by Tracey, it was located in the Gauteng province of South Africa but, when Tracey died in 1977, private funding had dried up. His son, Andrew Tracey, took over as Director and Rhodes University, in the East Cape province of South Africa, agreed to host the ILAM. Its aims are ‘to discover, record, analyze, and archive the music of sub-Saharan Africa, with the object of establishing a theory of music making in Africa and asses…
A History of Recording East African Music News
…y enough to obtain funding from Eric Gallo, who owned a recording label in South Africa. They had a “gentlemen’s agreement” that any artists Tracey discovered who had commercial potential, he would forward to Gallo. He therefore started the career of some of Africa’s first popular musicians, such as Jean Bosco Mwenda. Masanga, by Mwenda, was one of the first truly popular songs in Africa. However, as Tracey’s particular concern was that the record…