Interview with Fifty Cows – fixer for Singing Wells News
…le and goats. They used guns and spears. They would steal up to 6,000 head of cattle on these raids. When he was younger he was more involved with the support of the older men but as he got older he also had to fight. The fighting was most intense in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. He says it was done in the name of honour or another ‘fictitious’ reason but in fact it was just stealing. The Pokot would retaliate and steal the cattle back. Often the f…
Nick Abonyo (the ‘clapper-man’) News
…n. He first heard of Ketebul Music in 2008 when they were working on their compilation Retracing the Benga Rhythm. Ketebul were in southern Nyanza to record Benga music and Nick went to the sessions. His primary school teacher Paul Wau was an artist (we recorded him on a Singing Wells visit to Nyanza). Paul told him to check out Ketebul. He applied for an internship and in May 2011 was hired. He loves the professionalism, equipment and teamwork of…
The Kalenjin & Kenya’s elite athletes News
…ea. She was particularly impressed by Ben Kisinja who had a unique and animated way of performing. He played the pokondit, the guitar-like instrument, very well. She felt the older men were more soulful and she liked to hear their stories. She was also surprised how far some of the musicians had come to perform. She was talking to some of the singers and, for example, the young woman in Ben Kisinja’s group came from Kitale, about an hour’s drive a…
Matthew Morin News
Matthew Morin is a doctoral candidate in musicology at Florida State University writing a dissertation on music and civil society in Kenya based on fieldwork conducted in Kenya and Tanzania during 2010 and 2011. He currently lives in Japan and is continuing research on music and civil society from a global perspective. Matt has been following the progress of the Singing Wells project since March 2011 when he met the team in Nairobi. He has praise…
Music of the Luo: video playlist News
…In December 2011, the Singing Wells team travelled to western Kenya on the shores of Lake Victoria to record the music of the Luo tribes. To read the daily field reports from this trip, click here . Video Playlist The trip was facilitated by the generous support of donors to our charity the Abubilla Music Foundation. …
Recording the Luo: photos & music News
…Music and photos from the Singing Wells field recording trip to Western Kenya, recording the music of the Luo tribes. …
Recording music & dance of the Batwa News
…en the first human residents of the forest areas which stretch across much of what is now Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and DRC. In recent history however, the Batwa have become a displaced and largely forgotten ethnic group and their traditional culture and way of life is threatened with extinction. The Batwa community first became fragmented as other ethnic groups populated their homelands, cutting back the forest to provide land for crops and lives…
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
…yan sound and video engineers in their use, recording over 50 performances of at least 30 separate village groups, produced 4 CD’s, 4 DVD’s and developed a full sound and video archive. In addition, we will be bringing at least 10 contemporary artists to these mobile sessions, encouraging them to write songs inspired by and performed with the local artists and talking about their experiences through the ‘Influences’ programme. The success of Phase…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…. Most of the folks here with such backgrounds stick to buying a fleet of matatus (communal taxis), to running pubs playing Congolese music and poorly rendered local American hip hop and rap to importing cement. Jimmy is outgoing too. He can enjoy his cold beer (while updating his blogs and talking to you at the same time). It seemed that he was working every moment of his life. The only thing that scared him was the hotel room in Malindi. We’d bo…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…dn’t help us either. Luckily for us, while we were refueling car number 02 at Watamu, a friend of Pato’s who lives in Malindi just happened to come by the station for fuel too. He took us to Paradise Hotel (which turned out to be a disappointment for all), where we found Tabu and his team had already arrived and were a couple of tuskers down. After unpacking all the equipment and checking in to our respective rooms, Pato ,Winyo, Willie Bembe and I…
Meet the team from Ketebul Music News
…ject manager for Singing Wells, coordinating audio-video capture and preparation of CD’s, DVD’s and Archives: Our ‘Throat to Choke’ on the project – Steve is responsible for day to day management. Jessie Bukindu: Senior Sound Engineer at Ketebul, Jessie will lead the studio work on Singing Wells, including the ‘Fusion’ projects: The ‘Sound of Ketebul,’ Jessie will lead many of the key ‘Fusion’ projects coming from Singi…