Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…ately we all made it to super-market where we loaded up with money, mobile phone cards and other sundries and headed out. The William car stopped to pick up Akello, a lovely Ugandan singer/songwriter, who is joining the group as our Influences artist. The Emmanuel car headed into Kampala to pick up our press badges. We then headed off to Gulu at around 2PM (yes, we tend to spend a lot of time getting mobile phone cards!) and headed out on a 360 km…
The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…frica, meaning that within the huge range of instruments there were also a number of different names for them. This became very interesting to discover however, and over time that information could gather on the map, making it more comprehensive. What did you find most interesting about the data you collected? What stood out for me was the huge range of instruments used, and the huge range of percussion instruments available, which you don’t reall…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…all about the Otacho Young Stars. Let’s remind you who they are – here are two clips: We focused our recording time on Mr Manager, their quite sincere thank you song to a factory manager that came to their factory and actually did a good job. We always found this song amazing – the group is deadly serious in their thank you to the manager. But in many ways, we kept thinking it is sad that they find it so rare for someone to essentially do his job…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…h was surrounded by beautiful tall trees which blocked the sun. There were two all-female groups waiting for us, which seems appropriate given it is International Women’s Day. The Music Elimu Cultural Promoters Our first group was the Elimu Cultural Promoters from the Tugan tribe. They are a collection of women from little villages scattered around the Kabarnet area and they want to promote good values of culture and education. They were all dress…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…nce was as important as the audio. So for our November trip we invested in two more digital cameras and worked out our new Camera 1-3 approach. Camera 1 is static group shot. Camera 2 focuses on instruments. Camera 3 is context. This worked extremely well but created a separate issue – lots of cameras all shooting the same take created the classic problem of linking camera to audio. We thought about this and decied ‘what would be great is if we co…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…ed the karachimek, which is essentially two sticks on the ground played by two sticks. Tabu first met Ben in 2007, when working on Spotlight on Kenya Music Vol.4. He sang a song called ‘Kiseete’ on the album. (Interestingly, our second group today, Chebonet, played Kiseete, which is clearly a communal song of this community). Ben recorded 8 tracks with us, including a fantastic Influences track with Eddie Grey, a musician who joined Ketebul Music…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…teshead? The Singing Wells project is a result of a chance meeting between two music labels on two separate continents. Tabu Osusa founded Ketebul Music in 2007 with a goal to record and promote traditional East African music. Tabu laments the fact that the music heritage of the region is being 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…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…d raised in Nairobi. He is one of 6 children – he has one older sister and two older brothers and a younger brother and sister. He lives with his three brothers in an apartment in the Umoja district of Nairobi. Pato graduated from Pumwani High School in 1999 where he was always the ‘camera guy’, volunteering for every school project involving photography. He then worked in computer software before founding Foxhole Entertainment with some school fr…
Bill Odidi reporting on Singing Wells from London News
…med up with Andy Patterson while he was here and together they conducted a number of interviews with Kenyan musicians 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 Phot…
How to Map 3: Prepare Your Data News
…you some random data. Select CSV (basically Excel) as your Result Type and number range as your Data Type. When we downloaded the country outline of the UK, we downloaded three shapefiles of different administrative levels, called 0, 1 and 2. Administrative level 0 is the outline of the whole of the UK. Administrative level 1 is the outline of the countries within the UK – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Administrative level 2 is th…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…nd treat them as third class citizens. Local farmers exploit the Batwa for cheap labour, using them as porters to carry things for example. And the men often exploit the girls sexually. If there is a pregnancy the girl may be excluded from both communities. She might move to the town but she has nothing. It often ends in prostitution for her. Me: What does the future hold for the Batwa? Henry: At UOBDU we are working with other NGOs to establish p…
How to Map 2: The Map Outline News
…ase, GBR_adm.zip. Open it up and take a look. What you will see is a crazy number of files, none of which your computer seems to really recognise. Don’t panic. What you’re seeing is just a few shapefiles (remember shapefiles? No? Let me jog your memory). As we’re looking at the shapefiles in the C: drive rather than in ArcMap itself, you can see the six individual files which make up the one shapefile. In fact, in this case you’re looking at 18 fi…
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…h Nyiramajoro Jolly (and baby Byaruhanga) Jolly sings with Francis and his two wives. She does some of the most outstanding backing harmonies we’ve encountered. We’ve asked her to sing lead on a couple songs and love her voice. She lives up to her name and is always up for anything; the first in the studio and the last to leave. Jolly Naiti Paskazia (and baby Julius) One of Francis’s two wives and part of the trio of female singers that support Fr…
Day 4: Discovery of the Young Stars… Story
…on the Nyangile and we’ll try to explain how it works. The musician holds two ogeng’, one in his right hand, one in his right big toe. Both are placed on the box. With his left hand he hits either ring (with different sounds), or the side of the box or the top of the box (with different sounds). He also has the option, and this is where it begins to sound more like a bass, to slide the rings along the top as he plays to elogate the note and chang…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…my on Camera 2 filming Organda Joginda: Andy resting after setting up microphones: And Steve working as chief engineer on this session (Macbook Pro and two Motu audio interfaces on top of our trusted Pelicase, which acts as storage for all equipment, chair and table….in the back of the truck that will see us throughout Western Kenya: Finally, here’s Willie setting up a lapel mic for Okumu Korengo Thanks for listening. The Singing Wells Team 29th N…
Day 1: The music of the Luo – starting at Rang’ala Village Story
…er Ogoya Nengo. We’re about 90 minutes northeast of Kisumu, our ‘base’ for two days. We are here to record the Sega Sega Band (Benga Style) and the Do Do Band (Do Do), both Luo musical styles; the Luo are Kenya’s third largest tribe, making up about 13% of the population. The Sega Sega Band Led by Osumba Rateng. This is Benga style, originating from the Luo tribes, as they gradually built on the percussive/bass sounds of the Nytati to form somethi…