Current Leading Figures News
…n be found on Soundcloud, and one of the performances has been uploaded to Youtube (see the video above.) Tabu Osusa “Rather than embrace our identify we aspire to be something else. In Kenya, all the young musicians want to play Hip Hop and want to become like a musician from LA, all gangsta style. But that is not them” Our fantastic partner, Tabu Osusa, founded Ketebul Music: one half of the collaborative effort with the Abubilla Music Foundatio…
Music Depositories and Archives around the World News
…are the collections with the most relevant collections to East Africa. The site also provides little case studies of people who have used the British Library Sound archive for research, one of which is by a PhD student looking at traditional Ugandan music, who used to Klaus Wachsmann archive to further his research. The British Library has approximately 3.5million sound recordings in total available to listen to onsite, with a Reader Pass. However…
A History of Recording East African Music News
…traceysportrait/ http://www.swp-records.com/Profiles/Hugh%20Tracey/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvnRFvSJeo&gl=NL&hl=nl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRjQnqjGCH0 http://www.afropop.org/wp/2295/hugh-tracey-discover-and-record/ http://www.muzikifan.com/tracey.html Klaus Wachsmann http://startjournal.org/2013/01/on-cultural-destiny-wachsmann-archive/ http://www.ethnomusicology.org/?Prizes_Wachsmann http://www.musicology.ucla.edu/index.php?option=…
Singing Wells YouTube reaches 200,000+ views! News
… We’ve reached an exciting milestone here at Singing Wells and are so happy to see that our channel has reached over 200,000 views! Thank you to everyone who watches and enjoys are videos – all of our artists would love to see that their music has reached so many people. Here is our most recent upload for you… The incredible Original Chuka Drummers!…
Obuell-Lira and the Macedonia Band Story
…ered. For three years, the ‘village band’ played for the rebels and were visited by all the leaders. They refused, however, to play rebel songs or support the rebel side. They said over and over again that the music was neutral and only had allegiance to Uganda, not to one side or the other in the war. There were many scary moments when rebels would try to force them to declare allegiance or die. It was a miracle that the rebel leaders let them li…
The Birara Batwa Community Story
…a album or by donating directly to our charity, The Abubilla Music Foundation. Buy the Music of the Batwa of Kisoro here Donate via YouTube here Donate via BelieveIn here…
Report from Womex 2013 News
…p members from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. We were pleased to be sited next to New Zealand across the way and next door were South Africa! Podcast Andy recorded a few snippets of audio for an upcoming podcast – which will feature on the site soon. The Team A big thanks to Mike and Louise who were marvellous evangelists for the project over the course of the 4 days. Here is a picture of us all at our stand: And Finally… We were intrig…
Group of the Month – Otacho Young Stars News
…ung in English -about the arrival of a new manager to a sugar plantation. The irony being that they are thanking him, just for doing his job properly. This was one of the songs the group re-recorded at Ketebul studios – re-named Mr Manager and available on YouTube here: You can find links to the field reports below – along with a link to the group page for the Otacho Young Stars. We’ll be posting clips and recordings of the group on the Facebook,…
NME News
…It’s always nice to find your videos featured elsewhere, so when we found quite a few of our Singing Wells videos featured on NME we thought it was pretty cool. Although the content is generated by YouTube, it is always great to have a little bit more publicity for our cause! …
What people say about Singing Wells News
…very fascinated with your project and looking at what you have on your website is very exciting!” Andrea Dyck, Curator of Contemporary Cultures & Immigration, The Manitoba Museum “I found a lot of helpful information on the Singing Wells website and it helped a great deal in being able to hear what the instruments sound like when played and to see pictures of how they are held, etc. It sounds like you have a wonderful project. I would welcome any…
The New Singing Wells website News
…you can easily find the information you’re looking for. And finally… Please get in touch with us via Twitter or Facebook and let us know what you think of the new site! Our thanks go to Wes Burden and the team at Nebulo Strata who worked tirelessly on the site. …
Group of the Month – Watmon Cultural Group News
…recording studio in the garden. You can join us on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/singingwells and on Twitter here: http://www.twitter.com/singingwells – if you do tweet any links, please use the hashtags – #gotm and #singingwells We’ll update this page with any new items we add to the site over the course of the month. Check out the featured content links below to find the Watmon Cultural Group page from our Musical Map of East Africa….
The Beat of Kenya News
…h some information about the instruments and, importantly, some photos and videos of the instruments being played, which are from our field trip to Western Kenya in November 2011. The instruments now on display at the Manitoba Museum were donated to the museum in 2011 by a Canadian who had worked in Maseno, Kenya in the late 1960s. During the course of his work there, he was often invited to gatherings in the villages around the area where musicia…
A quick summary of the Singing Wells Project News
…is music alive. We are Andy and Vicki that raise the funds and produce the videos. If you like what you hear and see please visit us and support us. We are here to help. But we need help. And if you looked carefully in the videos, you’ll see the Nyatiti and you’ll hear Ayub Ogado who supports us and inspires us. We will leave you with his Kothbiro to remind us why this all so important and the rewards so ridiculously wonderful. Jimmy (Now you unde…
73,603 views on YouTube News
…sed that so many people are enjoying the music videos on the Singing Wells YouTube channel……73,603 views and still counting! It’s not a meaningful number in itself (like a nice round 100,000 – our next target) but it does mean more and more people are finding us and enjoying what we are all about – bringing the more traditional sounds of East Africa to an enthusiastic audience. Thanks for watching! Our top 3 video hits In third place, this is th…
The Influences Series from Singing Wells News
…l song from Abubilla Music re-mixed to include percussion from Sau Paulo and vocals from Nairobi. (Read more about the background to this track here) For more videos from the Influences series click here Meet our ‘Influences’ artists click here …