A Tanzanian Effort to Salvage the Music of the Past News
…r is it just about Tanzania; Benson also has a bigger point to prove about East African music. “Many people think that the only place where you can find really good African music is in West Africa”, he says. “We can say to people, hey, it’s not all about Kilimanjaro and the national parks. We also have cool music.” We wish them all the best, and hope one day to take a trip to Tanzania for a few recording sessions of our own! Check out the Tanzania…
Central Uganda: Day 7 – A Magic Day in Entebbe Story
…. But this is our first super group. The Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young of East Africa. We had Passy, Jacinta, Maita, James (our musical leader in Uganda and co-founder of Nile Beat Artists) and Jovah, the wonderful female singer we first listened to in Kisoro and then again in Nairobi. We will talk more about Jovah below. The group practiced and performed two songs: Ugandan Lullaby: We knew that Jovah and Maita knew lullabies and James came up wi…
Central Uganda: Day 6: Kampala to Entebbe Story
…arathoners in bright yellow shirts. The Recording Site We packed and drove east, just outside Kampala to the Kyambogo University, where James teaches. It was a beautiful gated campus, very quiet, big trees, lovely red dirt paths – it seemed to be a preserve for the lovely Ugandan greens and reds we’ve grown to love. Students walked everywhere with packs. We set up in the garden of James’s class room, under big trees, in tall grass. It had rained t…
Kenya’s Amazing Musical Instruments News
…ground and played by two more sticks. Of course there are so many more amazing instruments that we’ve recorded, and more still to find. To learn more about East Africa’s traditional musical instruments, have a look at our instruments page here….
Interview: fusion band Ndoto Afrika News
…m of music, the universal language. Where are you from? From Kenya, in the East of Africa. To be more specific, we hail from a small village in Siaya County where most of the renowned Luo musicians come from. Ever heard of Otieno Aloka (the famous Ohangla artist)? He is our next door neighbour back at the village. We borrow each other’s salt from time to time. Why is the group called Ndoto Afrika? We represent a dream. A dream every African youth…
Discussions with Peter Cooke: ethnomusicologist and Ugandan music expert News
…es at Kyambogo to implement our entenga restoration scheme to preserve and promote this traditional instrument for future generations. Students practice entenga drum-chime at Kyambogo in 1968 (Musisi is furthest from the camera) Peter’s research into African music is extensive. “It all began in 1964, a few weeks before travelling out to begin teaching in Kampala, Uganda,” says Peter. “On the stage of the Prince’s Theatre, London, I received my fir…
Before They Pass Away News
…ast Africa’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 photog…
Central Uganda: Day 3 – From Mbale to Iganga to Jinja Story
…ilometers from Mbale to Nakisene (from Mbale south toward Inganga, turning East toward the Kenyan border, just before Buggiri, we turned toward Idudi). The Recording Site: The village was far off road, along a dirt path perfectly suited to cows and motorcycles, but slightly more challenging to big vans of the four wheel variety. But, as always, we made it to the location, passing lovely red-mud huts along the way. The village was a large one, prob…
Happy new year from Singing Wells News
…that you’ve been bringing in the year by listening to lots of traditional East African music. Before we start posting exciting news about the upcoming year, here’s a quick recap of what we got up to in 2015: 1. We went discovering the lost music of the Ugandan Kingdoms In Nov/ Dec 2015 we travelled between Kampala and Jinja in Uganda in search of the lost music and musicians of the royal palaces. We posted regular updates about our journey and th…
We’re discovering the lost music of the Ugandan Kingdoms News
…far has taken us to the capital of Uganda – Kampala, over to Jinja in the east and back in search of musicians who haven’t played in the royal palaces since they were children. We’ve been posting regular updates about our journey which you can read on our Field Reports section. Including: Some background and the beginning of our journey to discover the lost royal drums of the Buganda Kingdom Context on the Entenga royal drums we’ve been searching…
Singing Wells surpasses 500,000 YouTube hits! News
…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 years and celebrated magic moments – where we’ve found an extra-special artist on our journeys and recorded their work. To celebrate our 500,000th YouTube hit, we’ve put together a selection of our most popular videos…
Sponsor a Singing Wells recording session News
…headed for Uganda. We have a jam-packed schedule to keep to: we’re going to be following the story of Uganda’s Royal Instruments, identifying key talent and inviting them back to Nairobi for recording sessions at our partner Ketebul’s studios, and travelling into eastern Uganda to record several tribal groups in the region. Check out our previous work in Uganda. Now we’re looking for sponsors to help fund our important work discovering, preservin…
Rediscovering Afropop and its influences News
…ecording and preserving this music it can continue to inform, inspire and influence a new generation of artists to carry the traditional music of East Africa into their songs. Listen to our bridge artists now. …
Discussions on music and culture with a young Kenyan News
…itage… 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 b…
Meeting Ketebul: an interview with Tabu News
…important? Singing Wells is important because we’re trying to capture our East African heritage. Many of the musicians we record from remote tribes are old and we run the risk of the traditional music in Kenya dying out, we don’t want to see that happen. Further, most recording studios are in the city: Nairobi. It’s not possible for those living in the villages to come here, so if we don’t go to them to record, these guys may never be heard and t…
Our top 5 Singing Wells songs for March News
…h every 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 serie…