Kenya: music of the Kalenjin Gallery
…Images from the Singing Wells trip to record the music of the Kalenjin tribes. The journey took us to Kitale, Mount Elgon, Kapenguria, Iten, Kapsowar and Lake Baringo where we recorded the music of traditional groups from different sub-tribes including Pokot, Marakwet, Tugen and Saboat….
The Luo of Kenya Album
…s part of the Singing Wells trip to record the Music of the Luo in Western Kenya. The album begins in Rang’ala village – with The Sega Sega band led by Osumba Rateng, and then a Dodo group led by Ogoya Nengo. We next move to Aluny Village – with performances from The Joginda Boys, Otieno Aloka and the late Okumu K’Orengo and his Nyatiti Group. The Kochia Traditional Dancers gave a very visual performance, and one of their tracks, recorded on the s…
What We Do Page
…the Mijikenda – Kenya’s Coastal Region Music of the Luo – Nyanza Province, Kenya Music of the Kalenjin, Great Rift Valley, Kenya Music of the Batwa, Kisoro, Uganda Music of the northern tribes, Uganda (Acholi, Alur, Langi, Iteso) Music of Central & East Uganda Music of Eastern and Central Kenya During each field visit we are invariably struck by a particularly talented or exciting musician or music group. When this happens we arrange for them to t…
The Kalenjin of Kenya Album
…onies of the performances have been captured well, with The Elimu Cultural Promoters and the Kewamoi Women Dancers both featured. The latter – a nice addition to the lineup, as the field day coincided with World Women’s Day. Eddie Grey was part of the team for the recordings, and he joined a number of groups to join them for Influences recordings. Two of these have been included on the album – his guitar playing accompanying The Elimu Cultural Pro…
Singing Wells Stories Page
…re: 2011 – 2013 sampler CD Winyo Winyo Shipton is a singer songwriter from Kenya. He joined us on our first trip to coastal Kenya to record the music of the Mijikenda. On the first session we recorded, in Gede, Winyo helped to create the Influences series by recording with Nyerere Wa Konde and his son Mr Bado. You can read more about the first influences session by clicking here: First Influences. Winyo also accompanied us on our trip to record th…
Field Recording Report by Kahithe Kiiru Story
…ople of Teso) are Nilotes who live mainly in Eastern Uganda and in Western Kenya. The Iteso of Kenya are about 500,000, the majority of whom live in Busia County. Their music varies from traditional drums to string ensembles of impressive complexity and we were lucky to both witness and document this variety. The first location of recording was Atapara village of Ong’ariama sub-location within Amongura location of Teso sub-county. Here we visited…
Global Influences Project: Loop Library Page
…ganda. They are a collective of musicians led by Amone Watmon Matthew, who promote the preservation of Ugandan cultural heritage through dance. The group is made up of up to 50 members, the youngest members being only seven years old. You can learn more about the group here. You can watch the full visual performance of this song on our Youtube channel by clicking here. Download the loop singingwells · SW Samples – Watmon Cultural Group 154BPM sing…
Lomut Traditional Dancers Group
…Music of the Kalenjin Kapenguria, Kenya Song translations – Lomut Traditional Dancers…
Day 3: Monday, 2017 February 20th Story
…Ida Odinga warning ‘sugar daddies’ off underage girls. The wife of former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga was telling men who pay young girls’ school fees in exchange for sex, to stay away. She attributed much of the rise of this phenomenon to the breakdown of village traditions and the fact that the women in the villages are no longer teaching young girls about the ‘ways of men.’ To be clear, she also blamed the men!] We talked to one of the…
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
…e is new to us (but, of course not to Tanzanians) and we’ve not seen it in Kenya or Uganda. In fact, ‘clown’ acts are quite central to Tanzanian dance as are acrobatic acts. We spoke to Leo about this. “Yes, we love to bring comedy to our music. If you look at most circus troupes that are touring in the world today, a huge number of the acrobats and clowns are Tanzanian.” https://youtu.be/C-4PdHne3Jc We’ll leave you here. We checked in to our hote…
Our journey to the Royal Drums: in the words of James Isabirye Story
…old Musisi, ‘please teach our boys 100 songs.’ I told Shaban, ‘you must learn every part and every song.’ And that is how we ended up on this road. We filmed the drums yesterday and today we are going to see the Bigwala and discuss more lessons learned. Tomorrow, we are going to find out how much more there is to do.”…
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…
Central & Eastern Uganda: Day 4, Part 2 – Flutes Story
…13 visit to Uganda and have invited them back to do studio recordings. But today, we focused on two things: 1) Discussing in detail some of our observations from our time exploring the royal instruments of the Kingdoms of Uganda. 2) Recording again Albert Ssempeke’s Buganda Music Ensemble. Given that we first decided to rediscover the Royal Drums after recording Albert’s group in 2013, we wanted to end this field visit with his recordings. Part tw…
Central & Eastern Uganda: Day 4, Part 1 – Reflections Story
…13 visit to Uganda and have invited them back to do studio recordings. But today, we focused on two things: 1) Discussing in detail some of our observations from our time exploring the royal instruments of the kingdoms of Uganda 2) Recording again Albert Ssempeke’s Buganda Music Ensemble. Given that we first decided to rediscover the Royal Drums after recording Albert’s group in 2013, we wanted to end this field visit with his recordings Part one:…
Central & Eastern Uganda: Day 3, Part 2 – Interviews with Musicians of Uganda’s Royal Palaces Story
…roven wrong. Musisi is looking for more drummers and the ones we talked to today are desperate to find others that played with them. Richard Ssewannyana We first travelled about an hour from Mukono to the village of Bamusuta B Kizimula to meet with Richard Ssewannyana. As we believe Musisi is the ‘last surviving’ royal drummer, we believe Richard is the last surviving royal flutist. Please, let’s be wrong here. We first interviewed Richard: “I am…