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
…inging Wells, you will know that we’ve been working for seven years now in Kenya and Uganda. We thought we would have covered more countries by now, but we have been blown away by the richness of the traditional music in these two countries, so we kept going back. We are very excited now to start our work in Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo on this trip but also recognize this is tip of the iceberg. We think we will be spending next 3-4 years coming bac…
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
…med back in 2011, on the very first day of the Singing Wells pilot trip to Kenya. Seeing the generations of Nyerere’s family performing together was a special moment (his son Mr Bado is also a musician). We captured a great fusion of old and new https://youtu.be/-MU13FLg_io You also need to check out the Elgon Ngoma Troupe, performing a traditional circumcision ritual dance. Please keep following our channel – with new videos going up there’s alw…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Days 5-11:An Interview with Gregg Story
…n two cars chasing after it, trying to capture as much as we can. But as a Kenyan I am frightened that we are devoting so little to this. Where is the supply of talent to help us go further and deeper? Where are the funds? And where is the demand? This is not as easily digestible – there are not a lot of people ready to consume it. You have to care, you have to want to know the music. SW: Why isn’t there more focus on this? GT: I don’t know and it…
The History Of Benga Music: A Report by Ketebul Music Story
…venties were the era in which Oluoch Kanindo, a former technician with the Kenya News Agency and the Voice of Kenya (KBC) grew into a massive music production guru whose dominance and supreme authority over Benga generated many controversies. One of the first big benga bands of that decade, Victoria Kings, was Kanindo’s brainchild and it grew into a key pillar of the Kanindo stable. Victoria Kings eventually split into sub groups, most of them wit…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Days 5-11: Ketebul Studios, Nairobi Story
…cal 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 Nyatiti and a new musical style being…
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: Day 4 – Nkubu to Mukuuni to Nairobi Story
…The final day – we record the Original Chuka Drummers and then head back to Nairobi, concluding our field visit to Central and Eastern Kenya….
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 3 – Nkubu to Mariene to Murungurune to Nkubu Story
…ritual in their local villages. [Note: There are many forms of this and in Kenya, a tribe that takes it most seriously is the Tiriki, where they a) still use the circumciser (a medically un-trained village elder that often performs the circumcision on 10-12 boys in a line with the same knife) and b) will severely punish and ostracise boys that don’t perform well in the ritual.] At about 14, the boys are selected to go through the rite of passage –…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 2 – Muranga to Kangema to Nkubu Story
…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 4 separate groups, all of whom stayed for the day. The 80 or so band…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 1 – Nairobi to Kiongwe to Muranga Story
…A wonderful day at the Kiongwe Market recording four women groups from Kiogwe Village. Lots of Ileve (Tin Shakers) and Vilingi (Whistles)…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 0 – London/Nairobi Story
…Day 0 is always a day of prep and planes. The Ketebul and Abubilla Music teams, with assorted guests, assemble in Nairobi to launch the first of our 2014 Field Recordings; this time focused on Central and Eastern Kenya. Here’s our team….
Central Uganda: Day 7 – A Magic Day in Entebbe Story
…for the full song. She said that her heart was so deep with joy she had no words – and she chose to dance. And she danced and danced. And that’s how we ended this trip. An artist that we had discovered in our first field trip to Uganda, listening to her vocal she had recording during her trip to Kenya to record in a studio (which had then been produced by an influenced artist we had brought with us to the Rift Valley) and dancing alone in the gar…
Kenya’s Amazing Musical Instruments News
…mportant instrument in Luo music (though we also encountered it in central Kenya, where it’s called the Wandindi). When well-played, it takes on the role of the “fiddle” found in Irish or American country music. The Orutu is a one-string instrument played with a bow, whose notes are created by finger pressure against the central stick, producing the effect of ‘fretting’ notes. Watch here as the Aloka Ohangla Group plays “Nyar Karapul” (the Orutu i…
Interview: fusion band Ndoto Afrika News
…o 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 are willing to sit by the evening fire and listen to stories. So we will have to transmit these stories to their iPhones…