The origins of Singing Wells Story
…tribes: the Mijikenda, the Luo and the Kalenjin. We have also travelled to Uganda to record the amazing musicians of the Batwa tribes, bringing many of them back to Nairobi to record them in Ketebul Music studios. We have designed two mobile recording units which can be assembled just about anywhere. The Ketebul and Abubilla audio and video engineers who support Singing Wells talk of the amazing experience working in the field. As Steve Kivutia sa…
Returning to Uganda in Autumn 2013 Story
…yoro to mention a few). Here’s an example of Basoga music – as always with Uganda music, amazing energy, exotic instruments and wonderful dance: Our Love of Ugandan Music and The Pearl of Africa While our mission is to record the music of all of East Africa, we are continually drawn back to Uganda. This will be our third trip and we are convinced we will return again and again. While it is always hard to capture a million images and sounds in a si…
Winyo performs with Batwa musicians for ‘Influences’ News
…studios in Nairobi. For more about this story click here. …
‘Missing’ – Singing Wells fundraising song for 2013 News
…March 2013 saw the release of an original track from Abubilla Music, re-mixed for the Influences series. The song is called (The only thing that’s) Missing and it was first recorded for the Abubilla Music album Misery Marmalade and other Spanish Jams. Here is the video of the new ‘Influences’ version, featuring musicians from Kenya, Uganda and the UK collaborating in this a unique song to celebrate and support Singing Wells….
Meet our ‘Influences’ artists News
…rding trip to Kenya (Great Rift Valley). Akello Akello Jackie is a young Ugandan singer who writes and performs both African contemporary and urban music in languages like Acholi (her mother tongue), luganda, abit of Kiswahili and English, among other languages. Akello started her musical journey as a young girl in her junior school leading in school musicals. Later on at 13 years she began participating in church, where she sang during conferen…
Day 8: Entebbe to Nairobi and Ketebul Studios Story
…nk it is mixed, but frankly the traditional music scene feels healthier in Uganda than Kenya. On the negative side, clearly there is not enough money going into supporting music. Uganda music is known for its elaborate costumes and yet in every village, hide-covered shields aren’t even wood, they are made of plastic. Beautiful ostrich feathers have been replaced by chicken feathers. Traditional axesa are now cheap wooden replicas. This is not the…
Akello sings ‘Influences’ songs for Singing Wells News
…nd urban music performer who sings in most popular languages like Acholi, Luganda, Swahili and English..After years of working with a few of Uganda’s leading contemporary and world music greats such as Kaweesa, Susan Kerunen, Myko Ouma, Tshila and Kinobe Herbert..she is indeed a rare talent with a rich textured organic voice. Akello begins a new journey of performing her own music compositions that she chooses to call “Hybrid” a simple cross betwe…
Day 7 (pm): Recording at the Airport Guesthouse, Entebbe Story
…they are from the North). Whilst talking to him I asked him about popular Ugandan music, as we’d heard alot during the week (usually being pumped out of local stores on big speakers). We listened to a few different tracks on his phone, and I narrowed my favourite Ugandan pop tracks down to ‘Apple’ by Bigtym and ‘Guns & Bomb’ by Bebecool.. Odika Constantine, son of Watmon, is in his 30s. He was abducted by the LRA from his home in Kitgum District…
Promotion of Batwa cultural music: UOBDU report March 2013 News
…oro, Uganda in December 2011. United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBDU) Narrative Report on the Promotion of Batwa Cultural Music Since April 2012, UOBDU started implementing a project responsible for promotion of Batwa cultural heritage, supporting the performance of music and drama to local audience and to allow UOBDU to monitor and update the performance of the groups visited by The Abubilla Music Foundation. During the visit…
Hannah interviews Evelyn Ojok – Acet, Northern Uganda News
…’s highest level so that we can get some sponsorship from NGOs or from the Ugandan Government. I have opened up a bank account for us to make this easier and my prayer is that we will be able to become professional performers and be able to buy proper costumes, more instruments and better equipment to keep authenticity. Why do you like to perform? I am a woman’s leader for a local parish and my work has now spread to four different parishes, this…
Day 7 (am) – back to Kampala: Naguru to Entebbe Story
…ader of his group, which he started in 1991. The members are from all over Uganda, but generally perform music in the style of Acholi, as Watmon is originally from Kitikum, not far from Gulu up in Northern Uganda, and moved down to Kampala during the war. We love the instrument they played, the Nanga (below) so much we asked if they would join us in Entebbe to record more songs with Akello. We asked them to come with us to our next stop: our hotel…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
On our last night in Nairobi following the recording trip to Northern Uganda we met with Swalhe Mwatela Massai, the founder of Msergo Mwatela Group, from the Coastal regions of Kenya. He originally performed with his father’s group and then he founded this group in 2007. They use a number of styles, most notably Sengenya, which we covered fully in our March 2011 field recordings in Malindi. We interviewed Swalhe Mwatela Massai and his grandson, A…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…all systems go Nick starts with ‘This is Macedonia with their fourth song Uganda Land of Freedom Take 5’. He then clicks the clapper board on which he’s written village, group, song, take and the camera cards everyone is using. We all then go through the take. Now of course, being the island of misfits that we are, every 5 times or so one of the cameras is in the wrong place or drops the lens cap and it rolls into the shoot or the chair falls ove…
How music archives can help communities News
…udent who was working for the United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBDU). Chris took the recordings back to Uganda and re-introduced them to the Batwa people who had since become a poor, landless and disempowered community following their eviction from the forests due to the gorilla conservation project in the mountainous south west region of the country. In particular, Chris played a recording to Jeremiah Bunjagare whose father’s…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Obuell-Lira to Soroti Story
…is another gospel song. https://youtu.be/h3PLpGb59A0 Their final song was Uganda, Land of Freedom, which was the song that saved the village multiple times. https://youtu.be/VRBYf6d8dp4 We loved the song so much we had them perform a ‘Magic Moment’ around the phrase ‘Uganda will be alright’. Lovely. And then we played footie… The second half of the day was, well, not so good. We needed to leave at 13:00 to get to Kampala before nightfall. No nigh…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…a ride to supplement the drivers income. Then there are the ‘taxi’s’ – in Uganda, these are the white vans with English names, ferrying folks up and down the highway. They are fun because each is covered with decidedly random words, like Gorgeous, Amen, Big Mama, Jesus Love, Go! Go!, etc… Motorbikes are everywhere, mostly on the side of the road with someone lying beneath them repairing something. In Uganda,, on most of the roads we travelled, th…