Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 2 – Muranga to Kangema to Nkubu Story
…did this twice, once with and one without the ladies humming (they needed to hum to get the beat right). Kangema Urban Women Group The group is led by Jacinta Njoki Mwangi and formed in 2006. The group plays in thee Gitiro style – the dance performed by women during ruracio, a dowry payment occasion. Gitiro: led by Jacinta Njoki. Ndumo (ya iritu): led by Jacinta and Mary Njoki. Kibuthi: led by Jacinta Njoki. Kangema Mwomboko Dancers The group is…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 1 – Nairobi to Kiongwe to Muranga Story
…ls and that we hope will be useful to others setting up a similar project. Today we focus on roles/responsibilities of the core team. On arrival at the site, we divide into three teams: Interview Team This team is typically Tabu Osusa, who acts as the on-site Singing Wells representative, formally meeting the band and handling all their questions about the project and their role in it. Tabu is typically joined by our local music expert, in this ca…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Day 0 – London/Nairobi Story
…aring 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 & PATRICK ONDIEK NICK ABONYO GREGG TWENDA LEWIS KOOME RALPH SIPALLA JONAH KEGAH KENNETH KIPSANG Message from Abubilla Music Foundation Team For this trip, we are Jimmy Allen (Video 2) and Andy Paterson (Audio 1). We spent our Saturday travelling from London to Nairobi. On arrival we were greeted warmly by Pris…
Central Uganda: Day 7 – A Magic Day in Entebbe Story
…hank them now for their patience with us. It is also important to say that today will be more unstructured. We have one formal new group, which we’ll describe below, but we have also invited artists from two of our trips to join us and create new music. For part of the session we were joined by Brad Gibbs from The Mara Group, who had sponsored part of this trip and wanted to see how things were going. Brad was joined by a colleague, Nicolas Farah,…
A Tanzanian Effort to Salvage the Music of the Past News
…to Rebecca Corey, who started the project in 2010 and still coordinates it today. “They started phasing out all foreign music from the local stations” in the 1960s, she told us. “So to fill up that airtime they would send out recording safaris to various rural villages to record these ngoma dances and drumming sessions.” This traditional village music was combined by state-funded bands with the Cuban-flavored rhumba coming in from the Congo. The r…
Central Uganda: Day 6: Kampala to Entebbe Story
…teresting near collisions. Throughout our recording and driving in Kampala today we were surrounded by limping groups of marathoners in bright yellow shirts. The Recording Site We packed and drove east, just outside Kampala to the Kyambogo University, where James teaches. It was a beautiful gated campus, very quiet, big trees, lovely red dirt paths – it seemed to be a preserve for the lovely Ugandan greens and reds we’ve grown to love. Students wa…
Central Uganda: Day 5 – Jinja to Kampala Story
…he only festival since 2005. Many people are performing around the country today due to those festivals. The group is very literate in music and we had a clear vision from 1990 of what we wanted to do. We are not doing badly and have a comfortable life from the performances. Some musicians who didn’t even have a bicycle not have houses. We are showing you can have a musical career. We are growing our knowledge and getting better at representing th…
Interview: fusion band Ndoto Afrika News
…logy 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 and iPads in the form of music, the universal language. Where are you from? From Kenya, in the East of Africa. To be more specific, we hail from a small village in Siaya County where most of the renowned Luo musicians come from. Ever heard of Otieno Aloka (the famous Ohangla artist)? He is our next door…
Central Uganda: Day 4 – Jinja Story
…casional monkey. The staff has been warm and helpful and offered the hotel today as our recording studio. We have been able to set up the computers in the kitchen of one of our cottage rooms and have the groups either perform on our dining patio or our porch. We had three groups today and the drivers were sent out to round them up from the surrounding areas. The Bigwala Cultural Group One of this group’s primary purposes is to restore the Bigwala,…
Before They Pass Away News
…t to sustain the musical heritage of East Africa, we want to promote it in today’s world. With this in mind, we’ve been following the work of British photographer Jimmy Nelson with interest, who spent four years travelling to meet and photograph some of the world’s last surviving tribes. His book, Before They Pass Away, is a fascinating insight into these communities’ ways of life. Nelson’s breathtaking photographs capture how these last remaining…
Central Uganda: Day 3 – From Mbale to Iganga to Jinja Story
…aced – either has orphans or from severely disadvantaged homes. He started to go to University but found that gathering the funds for tuition each time extremely difficult. He had raised the funds for another semester and then asked himself, “Do I want another semester of education, with no promise I will be able to fund another, or can I take this money and start to make a difference?” So he took the money and invested in instruments for children…
Central Uganda: Day 2 – Kampala to Budaka Story
…loss as the female singers performed. Animals were sacrificed during the story to bring hope and health to the village (very brutal throat slitting of a fairly battered foam cow, lamb and chicken). Bamiisi Muwulire: This was a song to rally people to listen to the stories of the band. Daudi: This was really a dance, a performance play, with many actors. The story was about a village boy that had gone astray – lots of partying, lots of late nights…
Central Uganda: Day 1 – From Entebbe to Kidinda Story
…trying to set up (and stay standing up). We were here to record two groups today. The Kidinda Cultural Group Our first group was the Kidinda Cultural Group, which were 8 men who collectively played the Amadinda, a 22 key wooden xylophone. There total group size is 15. The musical style is Kadinda. The group lead is Waswa Hood and he started playing when he was 17. There were two other original members: Kiwuwa Buruhan and Sulayiman Sserubiri. The g…
Central Uganda: Day 0 – Nairobi/London to Entebbe Story
…thunderstorm of biblical proportions was on its way….. A Note About Our Sponsors We are very grateful to have two sponsors for this recording trip. Firstly, The Mara Group are sponsoring a full recording day and have chosen to support our day in Mbale (Day 4: Thursday 21st Nov). We are also very pleased to have the support of Gorilla Tours, owners of the Airport Guesthouse who have provided one of the transport vehicles and a driver for the week,…
Meeting Ketebul: an interview with Tabu News
…ging out with the team and trying to absorb some of their street cred, was to chat to the main man: Mr Tabu Osusa. Sitting across from me in his office in his bright yellow patterned t-shirt and flat cap he looked laid back as he sipped his cool beverage. His easy smile broke every time I said something that amused him. Here’s our interview: Who are the most exciting modern artists you’re currently working with, and why? Some of the most exciting…
Our top 5 Singing Wells songs for March News
…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 love this song…