The Tribal and Musical Structure of East Africa – Worldmap Research News
…bution to link it to the map. This means one can compare tribal structures with musical styles. This could go on, such as with information about dress, language, history of conflict, customs etc. Below is an example of how the layers on the map can be used.. Distribution of all percussion instruments Distribution of melodic percussion instruments Distribution of only ankle bells The map above gives an indication of where ankle be…
Northern Uganda: Day 1 – Entebbe to Gulu Story
…pells it out. Ultimately 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 hea…
Northern Uganda: Day 0 – London to Entebbe Story
…frican music and did a paper on drumming in Ghana. So Vicki switched seats with Jimmy and talked to Andrew about the Singing Wells project for an hour. We then all settled down to watch Ted before landing about 8 hours later in Entebbe. All bags were gratefully recovered and we took a taxi for an 8 minute journey to the Airport Guesthouse Entebbe, where we were greeted by our old friends, Jan Willem Van De Kamp (the owner of this hotel and the Tra…
Day 9: Ketebul Studios with Ben Kisinja Story
…olks’ rushed to the airport. The Ketebul crew continued to work in the studio, led by Jessie who loves bringing Singing Wells musicians into the studio. Hunter and Jimmy will board our flight at about 11PM and with a 12 midnight wheels up, we will officially end the ‘field visit.’ Now the hard work begins of producing all the videos… Jimmy March 11th, Joma Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi Kenya…
Day 8: Ketebul Studios with the Otacho Young Stars Story
…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 that they need to write a song. Johnnie, Bishop and Eddie all joined in to support them in the studio with Winyo and Nina working on back up vocals. They were a huge amount of fun, smiling throughout it all. Other than recording, we continued to blog our little hearts out, write…
Day 6: Recording the Tugen & back to Nairobi Story
…ents in the area. They focus on traditional songs. They wear white blouses with blue patterned sarongs, decorated with golden designs and lines, looking like trees and fruits. Hunter felt the costumes represented the landscape. Eddie did three Influences sessions – two with the first group playing guitar on ‘Ribwege’, a song about protecting their culture, and on ‘Rirenecg’, a prayer song. With the second group he focused on the song ‘Chang’aomen’…
Acholi Tribe Profile – Music of Northern Uganda News
…h colonial period, the Acoli comprised the majority of manual laborers and military. This damaged the economy of northern Uganda, and, following the country’s independence in 1962, political and cultural turmoil lead to the formation of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a terrorist movement lead by Joseph Kony that ravaged Northern Uganda in the late 20th century and early 21st, and has since moved on. As a consequence, the Acoli are now emphasizing t…
Day 5: Recording the Marakwet Story
…homestead, similar to where we recorded yesterday. Each had a round house with thatched roof, each had several chicken coops and pens for goats. Every twenty had an additional rectangular house with pitched roof balcony. There were no other buildings or dwellings for 10 kms of travel and then a little market would pop up which would be filled with thirty or so stalls. Then more empty roads and lovely hillsides. We travelled this way for another 8…
Day 4: the Pokot Tribes Story
…aid during those 20 minutes up and down! Second event: we are up on a hill with 360 degree views – a patchwork of little farms, with no electricity, no water and little exposure to the modern world. And Andy back in the UK call Steve on Skype and we have a video call. Moreover, we put Andy (the laptop) in the middle of one of the tribal groups and – get ready – he plays guitar to the song and we complete an influences session. The dancers were alr…
Day 3 continued – an interview with Steve Kivutia Story
…ye 4 Design but later that same year he met Tabu through a friend who sang with Tabu’s band, He knew of Tabu because of his legendary status within Kenyan music. Tabu invited Steve into a meeting where he brought some songs he had worked on. Steve was still a big Hip Hop fan and loved R Kelley. He also liked Salif Keita, an afro-pop singer/songwriter from Mali, his only ‘African music’ influence. Steve’s first job at Ketebul was as an intern worki…
Singing Wells – Origins News
…rt of a field visit, therefore, is to bring contemporary African musicians with us to perform with the tribal groups and to write new music influenced by these sessions. Winyo, a wonderful singer/songwriter with Ketebul Music, is one of our Influences artists and has been with us on three Singing Wells field visits. His first album ‘Benga Blues’ (released by Ketebul Music and Abubilla Music in September 2012) is rooted in traditional music. Of Sin…
Day 3: Kitale to Kapsokwony, Kenya Story
…Song translations of Chebonet Teriet We then recorded Teriet, a guitarist with a wonderful acoustic guitar with a lot of miles. His best song was ‘Sigerer’. Kathy interviewed him about all his songs and this is a classic (to go to Kathy’s Blog on Songs from Day 1, click here). Sigerer tells the story of two bulls in Teriet’s family that we were stolen and taken to Uganda. The family dog was able to follow the scent and led a posse of 20 armed men…
Day 2: Nairobi to Kitale & an interview with Pato Story
…ducing a TV documentary on Kenyan Olympic athletes. (Pictured in the photo with Willie and Eddie). Interview with Patrick ‘Pato’ Ondiek We used the car ride to interview Pato about his background and his work with Ketebul Music. Pato is from the Luo tribe, from the village of Bondo (450 Km from Nairobi) , although he and his father were both born and raised in Nairobi. He is one of 6 children – he has one older sister and two older brothers and a…
Day 1: In Nairobi, packing and talking to Tabu Story
…also works with the fusion of traditional and more modern music. He works with young musicians in Nairobi to combine their music with the tribal music. The Rift Valley is known for its marathon runners. Most of the Kenyan stars have come from this area of Kenya. On this trip we willl visit villages where the Olympic medal winners in Beijing are from and record their music. Ketebul is part of the Go Down Art Centre in Nairobi. This centre is funde…
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
…Prepare the data To demonstrate I’ll be using some nonsense data about the number of unicorns in each county of Britain, but if you’ve been following along using a different country and your own data then carry on with that. If you want to make your own nonsense data then this site will generate 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 U…