Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…some great songs over the course of four days. We now want to repeat this for every field visit and decided to invite the Otacho Young Stars, the great find of our field visit to record the Luo, and Ben Kisinja, the great Kalenjin musician we recorded earlier this week. Saturday was 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…
Day 7: In Nairobi – sponsors, blogs and strategy Story
…over our remaining three days and will be a key issue we address as we put forward the next draft of our 2012-2014 Strategy. We worked the afternoon on writing blogs for all the interviews and field visits, including all our song translations. Kathy brought back a full work book of notes. We have realised the growing importance of our ‘field interviewer’ who now spends as much time with the groups before and after their recording sessions as we sp…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…rap Oloo’ : about a wife who thinks her husband is lost. She wants to look for him because she can’t be responsible for all her children and animals without him. ‘Chang’komen’ : about a woman who is married to a man in a different village. She comes home bringing specialities to eat and drink. ‘Nerekan Evyline’ : Evyline was left by a man who flew away. The song is asking about what she’s going to do. She’ll tell her father to build a house. About…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…o Nokuru travelling down the Rift Valley. We will take this ride tomorrow. For today, however, in the words of Robert Frost, we ‘took the road less travelled.’ We left Iten on a red, dirt road. The athletes ran on the sides and our car and jeep travelled in the middle. While the countryside was beautiful, the roads left a bit to be desired and we bumped and jostled for about 80 kms. The land is tilled now, waiting for a new planting season, so we…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…rom their town in Lamut. They were a younger group, tall and thin, divided between male and female dancers. They performed explosive short dances, each with a clear story dramatically acted out. They were dressed in striking blue costumes. We recorded 10 songs with them: Kaseta, Kitok Pokot, Chepo Ktpsot, Chelimo, Kech, Chepng’aror, Kalokeya, Suma Agenge and then returned to do an Influences session on Kech and a Magic Moment. The Magic Moment foc…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…lls in Kisumu, Lake Victoria) were amazing and more modern than most music today. The Clapperboard Today was the first day we used the ‘clapperboard’. First a little background to this…… Singing Wells has always been about the music so our initial focus was on audio recording. We invested in first class audio equipment and can record using 8 mics directly into Pro Tools. But during the March Pilot programme, we realised that the visual experience…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…tes International University (USIU). The Music Groups Ben Kisinja First up for recording was Ben Kisinja, a wonderful guitarist in the typical Kalenjin style. Tabu describes this style as very traditional and the way of singing is very unique to the Sabaot clan of the Kalenjin. The guitar is called a burkandit, and is a homemade guitar somewhat resembling the Nyatiti of the Luo. He was joined by a percussionist who played the karachimek, which is…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…ible and didn’t care about the music and performed songs which are just performed for tourists. Not real music and not good. I knew the second it started. I was so glad it started raining and we could get out of there.” [Editor note: we did not include this group in any Singing Wells materials.] So here is Pato’s favourite Singing Wells track – Jovah from the Mperwa Batwa community in Kisoro performing with Jesse on piano at the Ketebul Music stud…
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…nt to hear. The tribes often think we want to hear gospel, rap or songs performed for tourists. He wants to archive the traditional music because otherwise it will be lost. Young Kenyans in the cities are ignorant of the traditional music and are surprised when they hear quality and uniqueness of the tribal music. In addition to archiving the music, Tabu feels Ketebul’s role is to make the music widely accessible and to empower the tribes. If the…
Victoria’s reflections on the music of the Batwa Story
…accompany them. And make sure we have plenty of group shots of our star performers before we say goodbye for the last time (little do I know that there will be a reunion at the Ketebul Music studios in Nairobi the following week, but that’s another story…) After recording is over I sit down with Alice to make sure I have all the names of the songs and their meanings. It’s been raining heavily since about 4pm and the power has cut out. There’s no b…
Return of the Batwa @ Ketebul Music Studios Story
…ording on the hill tops near Kisoro. He played kid golf during his live performances, gently knocking the kids from the ‘stage’ with his spear. He is an amazing visual performer, especially in his songs about cranes where he does the Batwa ‘Bird Dance.’ He is the leader of the Kisoro Batwa in terms of music and we could not have recorded further without him at the heart of our sessions. Francis Sembagare Tiny Moses Tiny Moses blew us away at the h…
Day 3: Homa Bay and the Kochia Dancers Story
…… The Kochia Dancers Today is all about dances, so our videos will be much better than still photographs. Let us introduce you to the dancers; here in full glory are the Kochia Dancers who dance in the Ramogi style of dance (ref: for a great article on the Ramogi dance of the Luo, by Helen Odwar, click here): https://youtu.be/_qVuMFLJ9-M https://youtu.be/pwVlHnpw8Io https://youtu.be/B_M_OFRzDoU https://youtu.be/6AjxDKLPLkg https://youtu.be/2iGUcQR…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…all instruments, accompanied by dancers and back up vocals; here he is performing….and posing for a portrait: He gathered a big audience….and The Singing Wells team poses with his band: https://youtu.be/9lnuEPTo1No https://youtu.be/RfDGq0WpDMk https://youtu.be/CyAm45yHzE0 https://youtu.be/JY0a4W0-8ME https://youtu.be/8canGj0fxXo The Village as ‘set’ We try hard to bring you a sense of the beautiful villages that serve as our recording studios. Ou…
Day 1: The music of the Luo – starting at Rang’ala Village Story
…look at a map and think of Lake Victoria as a clock face, the village for today’s recording is at 1PM – it is the Rang’ala Village, home of the legendary Luo singer 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 B…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…si families and forced them to slaughter every family member. Mothers were forced to kill each of their children before they were slaughtered themselves. Rape was used to humilate and torture. Many rapists had AIDs and knowingly infected their victims. Long after the slaughter was over, the victims of rape continued to die in the thousands from AIDs. But most were burned or hacked to death long before. The ‘lucky ones’ died of AIDs. The memorial h…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…e of our hosts from the hotel then join the group for the second shot. Now for a formal photo with Jesse, Jimmy, Francis and Tabu The ladies came to work on an ‘Influences’ session with Winyo. Here, they put down their track. Not at all phased by the use of headphones and mics, they take everything in there stride, performing a number of takes as the song develops. We start by giving them a simple click to follow the beat but quickly realised that…