Lango Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…o, Kefa M. (2006). Culture and Customs of Uganda. Ohio: Greenwood Press. (Lango at everculture – 2012) Lango – http://www.everyculture.com/Africa-Middle-East/Lango.html#ixzz2AhrHntF4 …
Day 7: In Nairobi – sponsors, blogs and strategy Story
…is to be systematic in our field visits, to represent the breadth of East African styles, to record fairly, and to not judge whether any particular group or style is likely to be relevant to today’s generation of listeners. On the other hand, we are artists, seeking musicians and styles that can be fed directly into the current music scene – we are ‘seed’ collectors looking for music that can be replanted and grown in different soils. Our obligat…
Acholi Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…li in Uganda. History: They came to northern Uganda from Bahr el Ghazal in South Sudan. In the late seventeenth century, they developed a socio-hierarchical system, in which communities, or chiefdoms, were run by Rwodi (rulers). They were traditionally hunting communities, whose economies revolved around hunting and breeding livestock. In the British colonial period, the Acoli comprised the majority of manual laborers and military. This damaged th…
Music of Northern Uganda News
…and represent the Alur, Madi and Kebu tribes. They are well known in East Africa and have performed at various state functions in Uganda and also at the Senator Leger Festival since 2004. They play many of the traditional Ugandan instruments including the adungu, agwara, ndara, rkikriki, obilo (a horn) and the oseke (pan pipes). Alur Kingdom Troupe playing the Agwara With time fast running out, Steve and Patrick headed back to Kampala to meet w…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…ing eroded. He says, ‘For reasons I can’t fully explain, contemporary East African music has lost touch with its tribal roots. Our most popular musicians find far more inspiration in western music than they do with East African music. I worry about this. As a people, we risk losing our deep cultural heritage – the role of traditional music and dance in our lives. And as musicians, we risk becoming undifferentiated. Rather than drawing upon what ma…
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…heir history, of war, of famine etc but there will be common themes as all Africans have similar challenges and experiences.” Ketebul is recording traditional East African music before it is lost forever. Tabu came up with the idea of ‘going to the tribes’ rather than dragging the tribes to studios” He describes the Singing Wells approach to mobile recording: “Recording the tribes in their home villages is very different than recording them in the…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…ns who are now based in the UK. They also had the chance to visit Kenya House in Stratford as a guest of our friends at the Kenya Tourist Board. Here’s Bill’s article published in Business Daily Africa: http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Where+the+world+got+real+flavour+of+Kenya+in+London/-/1248928/1480860/-/djb5mf/-/index.html Photos from Kenya House …
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…of an ending. I say goodbye to the Ketebul team at the airport. My week in Africa has come and gone all too quickly. This trip has been important for me in so many ways. Firstly, it’s never a bad thing to be taken out of your ‘comfort zone’ and be shown life from a completely different angle. It puts a new perspective on your own life. Hopefully it prompts some positive action. Secondly, it was so good to meet the Ketebul team after many months of…
How To (Arc)Map News
…The Singing Wells team are currently hard at work on a musical map of East Africa, using an piece of software by Esri called ArcMap 10. Singing Wells is intended to be a pilot project, demonstrating to other groups how traditional music can be recorded and archived, so we want to make sure anyone can understand what we’re doing and replicate it. To that end, Singing Wells will be blogging about how to use ArcMap 10 and what exactly we’re doing wit…
Day 4: Discovery of the Young Stars… Story
…e the Kanindi Jazz Band, great dancers who also introduced us to our first Africa venture with the Vuvuzelas. They also had a wonderful Teng’ (the horn): Here’s the full band. The leader is second from right. The two lead dancers are third from the right and far right sitting. https://youtu.be/YT7fEQn7u5o https://youtu.be/F_iuv9uwlRo https://youtu.be/ZLRh1szBXoI https://youtu.be/NLstJmXsKTU https://youtu.be/-fgeskbFbow Jose Kokeyo Jose is a fantas…
Day 3: Homa Bay and the Kochia Dancers Story
…a now at Homa Bay (still 1PM on your Lake Victoria dial) but a little more south and a little more west, on the south shore of the Winam Gulf. After a long drive, we set up at the hotel in a beautiful field against the lake – we’re surrounded by camels and pelicans, which is frankly a bit off putting. The pelicans are big enough to fly us away, but luckily we don’t smell like fish. We smell like a lot of other things by this time – there aren’t a…
Christine Kamau – “The Jazzist” News
…ria! Thanks for getting in touch! I have checked out you project…it’s great that you are dedicated to keeping indigenous music alive..#very best wishes and I hope we can keep in touch. Christine BBC Africa Beats: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17831507 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thejazzist Reverbnation: https://www.reverbnation.com/christinekamau …
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…wonderfully the age range across the group and the fact that music here in Africa is for the whole community, from the very young to their much respected elders. This lady was one of the principal dancers and she out performed many of the younger members of the group… You can see her in action in the later part of the amazing, high energy performance… As always, the babies are not excluded from the show. They learn the traditional Batwa songs and…
Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…is music, which is why he is such an inspiration: But too many (most) East African musicians want to sound like 50 Cent or Justin Timberlake and too many East African radio stations sound like they are competing on Los Angeles air waves. So the second major goal of Singing Wells is to inspire current artists to pick up on the traditions of these tribal artists. One way we do this is to record ‘Influences’ sessions, where Winyo and other artists wo…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…ry, centred on the famed mountain gorillas. Uganda: Known as the ‘pearl of Africa’ – it too is covered with hills and lakes. Like Rwanda it has the mountain gorillas. It is a completely land locked country. It shares Lake Victoria with Kenya and Tanzania. Crossing the Border: Rwanda was colinised by the Germans and Belgians, Uganda by the British. The result? As you cross the border between the two countries you switch sides of the road. Our drive…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…to helpother groups set up to expand the recording of tribal music in East Africa, we also use these blogs to also document our ‘way of working.’ The Gear: Let’s summarise what a the Singing Wells Kit is for a location shoot. We bring 7 bags to a site (the picture shows most of it); these are: SW1 and SW2: These are identifical Pelicases with Apple Laptops, Motu Mixer, Hard Drive Back ups and Headphone Amps. With these, we can record 1 large sessi…