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
…y modern, western-influenced music. Do you listen to much traditional East African music? I have heard it before, I might come home and my dad would be playing it on the radio for instance… but I don’t like it. Put yourself in my shoes — imagine your parents playing old-school church songs, chances are you’re not going to like it. It’s not really popular with young people generally. Why do you think that is? Well, we’re adverse and stubborn. We ru…
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
…ecorded 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 visiting www.bozza.mobi from mobile phones and PCs.” Thabiso Mohare, Head of Brand & Marketing…
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…
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,…
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…
Tracey Instrument Collection News
…It is made from legavaan, or rock monitor (a large type of lizard found in South Africa), skin which gives it the ‘crackling’ sound. The legavaan is now actually endangered in Uganda, as it is demanded so much for drums, lyres and fiddles. Endara log xylophone The xylophone is 263.5cm long, made up of 16 roughly cut keys and tuned to a pentatonic scale. It is played using one beater, which is attached to the xylophone by string and can be played b…
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. …
ILAM, Repatriation and Jimmie Rodgers/Chemirocha News
…ic we are recording – most notably the massive influence of gospel on East African music, which, in turn was created in large part by Black-American music, directly inspired by early African village music. We listen to the likembe music in Uganda and here the steel drums of Calypso music. We listen to Benga blues and here the music of Cuba, demanding that we look further into the circles travelled between musicians between the Congo and Cuba, and…
Ketebul Music: A Year in Review News
…r, we have to focus on archiving and make sure our materials are stored in Africa and London. Professor Wolfgang Bender is a very dear German friend of mine. He was working in Sierra Leone and took the music from the radio station there. During the civil war the radio station as burned down. Thankfully, he had all the archives. Finally, on a personal side, I’ve travelled Doadoa Uganda, where I played the Jovah CD, and the audience cried. I travell…