A quick summary of the Singing Wells Project News
…to record. Here is his music and story, which has been shared with over 15,000 people: 3. Singing Wells is about capturing the music before it is gone. Our mission is two-fold. First, we hope to capture and distribute the wonderful music of East Africa. There’s an urgency to this that was brought home to us when we recorded Okumu K’Orengo, one of the world’s greatest Nyatit players. His last song for us was a funeral march. His village thanked us…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…write and….gulp…. survived. To re-cap the journey so far. We set out at 1300 for Soroti to Kampala, promised to arrive before dark. We were chased back to Soroti with a broken right wheel spring on one of our vans. Some fast welding and we set out at 1530 promised an hour and a half of night driving. The road was rougher than predicted and arrived on the Nairobi road at about 1845. At 1930, the same van has the back left tire go. We are now off a…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Obuell-Lira to Soroti Story
…he second half of the day was, well, not so good. We needed to leave at 13:00 to get to Kampala before nightfall. No night driving is a Singing Wells rule given how scary the roads are. We actually left at 12:45 and got about 20 minutes outside of Soroti only to have a car breakdown. So we had to turn around and get back to Soriti for a quick welding (by a guy on the street in flip flops..). We didn’t leave Soroti until about 15:30, knowing we now…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…on her head and marches into the local market to sell a packet for about 2,000 Ugandan shillings ($1). By our calculation, that is a 15-30 kilometer round trip the market, giving her time to make two runs. Most of the women carry empty bottles and cans on top of the grass bundle so she can buy essentials, like cooking oil at the market. The thatched bundles are then sold at the market to businesses that are working on new thatched roofs or those n…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – night recording at Fort Murchison Story
…the fire light, and the flickering flames add mystery and drama to the performance. For some of the music, and we thought about Oramba yesterday, the song are fireside songs. Oramba is a hunter and the song is about the village wondering whether he will come back with a kill. Oramba is fierce, running around with a spear, lunging at the audience. Think about what that would be like for the children as Oramba drifts into the shadows only to fly ou…
Northern Uganda: Day 4 – Pakwach to Widiang’a, Nebbi Story
…Omiya Charles playing Mbeta. We loved these musicians the fun of the traditional dances. You got mad at the stubborn girl, you got scared when the hunter returned and you celebrated for the new chief. On the way to Fort Murchison where we were staying, we saw some spectacular stormy scenes as we crossed the River Nile:…
Northern Uganda: Day 3 – from Gulu to Awach to Pakwach Story
…lady sitting on the blanket in the middle of this village, surrounded by 100’s had a beautiful, strong, pitch perfect voice. Incredible. She sang: Two Man Dong Lakee Cok Mon Alwak Munu Keya Here’s Two Man Dong: https://youtu.be/CwBlvGLF0YY Here’s Lakee: Here’s Cok Mon Alwak: https://youtu.be/mWakegCOMV8 And here’s Munu Keya: https://youtu.be/IoImfE_sG3M Moving on The day ended and we drove an hour back to Gulu. We then bought a snack (it was 6 PM…
Northern Uganda: Day 2 – from Gulu to Acet Story
…and a team of performers – 6 groups with 20 members in each – and another 100 children. By the end, these two teams were joined by another group of 100 adults from the surrounding village. Our backdrop became not the cement buildings, but the faces and shirts of our three teams – we guess they were 350 strong at the peak. The Music Groups The main theme of the day was dance. All groups featured wonderful female dancers and two ladies in particular…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…e changing, however. Since the Female Genital Mutiliation or ‘FGM’ Act in 2009 the practice has been on decline, but this year in particular Pokot men have come to women’s aid by rejecting the practice. There were reports in February of this year of men demonstrating with large placards against FGM. One man, Mr Lotolim, a resident of Jumbe village in Amudat District, reported that Pokot men often only resort to polygamy because their first wives h…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…ched seats with Jimmy and talked to Andrew about the Singing Wells project for an hour. We then all settled down to watch Ted before landing about 8 hours later in Entebbe. All bags were gratefully recovered and we took a taxi for an 8 minute journey to the Airport Guesthouse Entebbe, where we were greeted by our old friends, Jan Willem Van De Kamp (the owner of this hotel and the Travelers Rest in Kisoro), Charles and Simba (the Rottweiler who fe…
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…writing blogs, organising strategy through 2014, sorting through about 10,000 receipts of expenses (we run a very tight shop, thanks to Steve’s leadership), we welcome Ben into the studio to record. The Otacho Young Stars stayed the morning as well. We had a full crew to support Ben – Johnnie and Bishop on guitar, Nina and Winyo on vocals. Watch this space. We also continued our work to capture new artists for Missing – Global Remix, our 2012 fun…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…ts, strategies, lessons learned, etc… The good news is we have now fully planned out field visits through 2014. Jimmy 10 March 2012…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…yre. This moved our departure time from the two hotels (Eldoret Club and Pine Tree) from 8am to about 9.30am. The tyre had a damaged tube that just wore out. We reassembled and headed off for a spectacular trip from an altitude of 2,800m down to 1,114m at one of the floors of the Great Rift Valley. The roads were more winding and steeper than on our trip to Rwanda last November but there was no rain and there were guard rails on the roadside which…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…it has become the legendary source of great long distance runners. Over 1,000 Kenyan runners train here and the roads are filled with athletes training for London 2012. In addition, over 300 foreigners train here, mostly from Europe. We went to the main training centre and interviewed a project manager about why so many people travel all this way to train on the red dirt roads around Iten. She answered: “First, the altitude (roughly 2300 meters)…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…village for the shoot – straight up a very steep hill. This was not a hill for most humans and certainly wasn’t a hill for cars and certainly not cars filled with Ketebul folks and all our equipment. We got up and down, but we imagine there were a lot of prayers said during those 20 minutes up and down! Second event: we are up on a hill with 360 degree views – a patchwork of little farms, with no electricity, no water and little exposure to the mo…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…e was born in Mata Hospital and sent to Maseno Highschool, graduating in 2000. During school he loved Alpha Blondy, a reggae artist from the Ivory Coast, but also loved Hip Hop. He took a gap year and the joined a university to take computer classes in 2002-3. He tried to join the Air Force but his mother wouldn’t let him sign up so he joined Creative Edge a graphics design firm, and then Smoke and Mirrors a multi-media company in 2003-2004. In 20…