Day 2: Sunday, 2017 February 19th Story
…Sophie into one of the huts to watch their dance in private. In Uganda and Kenya we have a lot of recordings of rites of passage, mostly around male and female circumcision rituals – happily the songs survive but not the rituals in the places we visited! But we have far less on the theme of ‘women for women’ songs of instruction, or the rites of passages of women preparing for adulthood. We encountered these in three separate villages and all the…
Day 1: Saturday, 2017 February 18th Story
…his name is a sign of respect – think, ‘Old Man Morris’. He was born in 1920. At two years old, he lost his sight as a result of a bout of small pox. He died in 1999. Throughout his long life he drummed. Here’s Leo Mkanyia , our 2017 Influences Artist, describing his experience listening to Mzee Morris’s music: “He wasn’t normal. He plays his drums like a guitar. You have to listen very carefully to realize not only is he keeping the beat, but h…
Ketebul Music presents Shades of Benga Online News
…re at their website here. Shades of Benga: The Story of Popular Music in Kenya delves into the foundations of modern Kenyan music, examining external influences from the English waltz to Afro Cuban Rumba and how they helped mould new music styles across Africa. Rumba was brought to Eastern Africa via the itinerant Congolese musicians Edouard Masengo and Jean Bosco Mwenda who’s intricate guitar-picking styles largely shaped the present Kenyan sou…
Singing Wells Youtube Channel hits 2.5Million views News
…of the highlights from our channel. First place on the view count – at 272,000 views, goes to our awesome session with Otieno Aloka in his Luo village. Performing with a traditional band, this video of the famous singer of ‘Kanungo Eteko’ is a great example of the Singing Wells project in action; a modern artist connecting to his musical heritage as he plays the traditional orutu, whilst also inflecting it with his own contemporary style. https://…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Days 5-11:An Interview with Gregg Story
…rely lets us scratch the surface. We did 5 songs per group, but they have 100. We could have had a dozen people come on influences. We could have rehearsed performances and help the groups reach a far higher level of performance. And in every location, we could have recorded another 20 groups. It is all out there and it is all amazing but fading fast, and we are two teams in two cars chasing after it, trying to capture as much as we can. But as a…
The History Of Benga Music: A Report by Ketebul Music Story
…t African countries—Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania—covering an area of over 68,000 square kilometers. The Luo who live around its shores in Kenya speak a western Nilotic tongue distinctly different from their Bantu neighbours to the north and south, and their Kalenjin distant cousins to the east. The Luo comprise close to 3 million people. Their forefathers migrated south from the Bahr al Ghazal region in what is today know as Southern Sudan in a stea…
Latest Field Trip – Kenya 2018 News
…We’ve returned from our latest field trip, this time to western Kenya. Field reports coming soon….
Central and Eastern Kenya: Days 5-11: Ketebul Studios, Nairobi Story
…to record a set of legendary musical artists – all of them in their late 60’s-70’s, all of them critical to Kenyan music history. These artists were: Ochieng’ Nelly Mengo Ochieng’ Nelly was born Nelson Ochieng Orwa in 1943 in South Nyanza. The guitar came to Kenya after WWII and inspired a lot of young men who were steeped in village music. One of these was Ocheieng’ Nelly who got his first guitar in 1961 and his playing was shaped by the Luo Nya…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 4 – Nkubu to Mukuuni to Nairobi Story
…ly children from the trip! We packed for a final time and departed for Nairobi. We made pretty good time to Ketebul music, where we unloaded our gear. Then we headed for the Fairview, a 20 minute drive that took about 90 minutes due to traffic! We all crashed early knowing we had almost a week in the studio starting tomorrow morning!…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 3 – Nkubu to Mariene to Murungurune to Nkubu Story
…route: Irimbene Cultural Dancers and Self Help Group This group formed in 2000 with 21 young men. They are led by Edward Kiogura. This is Authi style, they are Ameru from the Irimbene Village, upper Kiungone Sublocation, Abogeta West Division. The group uses Mbere (shakers) worn by Bernard Nkonge, Ginfold Mbae, Amos Munthi and Fraras Ikunda. They also use a flute, Coro, is performed by John Mwiti. The group was in beautiful costume and so energeti…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 2 – Muranga to Kangema to Nkubu Story
After a quick breakfast, we loaded up and departed at 09:00 for a 10:00 session in Kangema. Here’s our map: Our first joy was the site of Mount Kenya as we hit the road. We met our local contact, Jane Kagai, and then travelled to the KCC area, a lovely field about 100 meters below the road. While a lot easier than the hill we faced in Kisoro (SW Uganda), we nonetheless had to take our 44 bags down to the site. We set up under a tree and recording…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 1 – Nairobi to Kiongwe to Muranga Story
We all met at the Fairview at 5:30 AM, packed and departed at 6:00AM, travelling from Nairobi to Kitui, on the Mombasa Road, arriving at 10:00AM. We picked up our local contact, Dominic Mukora, and drove to the Kiongwe Market to record our first group. Here’s our route: The site passed the first Singing Wells test, lots of chickens and children; we find their noises the perfect backing track for all our recordings. The market structures were beau…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 0 – London/Nairobi Story
…has been our primary contact person to support this trip (e mail: lkoome2000@yahoo.com) Raphael Sipalla (Audio 4) our ‘Influences’ artist (e mail: ruffmaud@yahoo.com) We will be interviewing them throughout this trip to provide additional color to our Field Reports. We spent our Saturday packing and preparing the vans for the trip. Let’s remind you of our team – we cheated and took photos from the trip that follows: Tabu Osusa STEVE KIVUTIA & PAT…
Central Uganda: Day 7 – A Magic Day in Entebbe Story
…no better than the other Batwa so I thank you for choosing me. I am happy 1000 times over. My message represents the rest of the Batwa people. I listened to the recording of my song – it was so nice, so sweet.’ But we had one last special treat of music. We then played for Jovah an influences session with Eddie Grey, where he produced Inyange. We played it back to her and she danced with her new baby, Gerald, for the full song. She said that her h…
Kenya’s Amazing Musical Instruments News
…The Young Stars in the village of Rongo, not far from Homa Bay in western Kenya. Watch them here: Burkandit The Burkandit is a type of home-made guitar that features in Kalenjin music. We saw one being played in 2012 by the masterful Ben Kisinja in Kapsokwony, not far from Kitale. At the time Ben was joined by a percussionist playing the karachimek, which is essentially two sticks laid on the ground and played by two more sticks. Of course there…
Interview: fusion band Ndoto Afrika News
…terviewed them to find out more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeRj9BrTT20 Hi Holly. Tell us about yourself and Ndoto Afrika – what’s your story? They say stories live forever and one famous Kenyan writer keeps saying that a story is good, until another is told. We are here to share with the world how wonderful it is to be born and raised in Africa. Sadly, the urban African youths are so consumed with the modern technology that they no longer ar…