From the Batwa, to the Nilotic, from the Nilotic to the Bantu:

We are very excited to confirm that we are returning to Uganda to continue tribal recording in the Autumn 2013.   We’ve had extraordinary trips to Kisoro to record the Batwa and Northern Uganda to record the Nilotic tribes (Alur, Acholi, Iteso, Langi and Lugbara).   For this upcoming trip we will focus on Central and Eastern Uganda which is home of the Bantu tribes (the Baganda, the Basoga, the Bagisu and the Banyoro 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 single blog, we’ll try to summarize what keeps bringing us back…

• The individual voices
• The collective voices
• The exotic instruments
• The extraordinary dance,  youth and energy
• The inspiration

A performance or two for each of these…

1.  The Individual Voices:   Who can forget Francis, the lead of the Batwa musical community, singing with Jessie in the grounds of our hotel.   Everyone stopped to listen and it remains one of our most inspiring tracks…

Or the leader singer of the Robanga Kingom Awach boys of Northern Uganda, Wokorach Walter.  Have you ever heard anything like this?

2.  The Collective Voices:  We will never forget Jovah and Winyo, singing with the Mperwa Dancers in Kisoro.

3. The Exotic Instruments:     You’ve heard the Likembe, but what about the Adungu from Kampala?

Or the Nanga and other instruments from the Wotman Cultural Group.

4.  Extraordinary Dance:    Uniquely in our experience to date, Ugandan music is still performed by the young and they bring with it amazing energy.   Let’s start with the Oramba dance by the Alur Kingdom

And provide one of our ‘Magic Moments’ with a dancer that captured the hearts of a few of our female film crew!  This is Ker Kal Kwaro.

5. Inspiration:  And, of course, this music inspires our younger artists and motivates them to try new and different styles.  Here’s Akello with Amari (featuring the Wotman Cultural Group):

That’s it.  We just wanted to drop you a note to say we’re coming back and to thank you for your support.  If you’re interested in Uganda music and want to support us on the next phase, do let us know!

Jimmy

Click here to download the podcast: Singing Wells podcast #2

List of Music Played in the podcast:
1. Theme Tune – Tiny Moses in Nairobi

listen | watch | Bandpage  

2. Anyim Lac – ‘Two Man Dong’

listen | watch | Bandpage

3. Samburu – “Chapitamen”

listen

4. The Joginda Boys – Magic Moment on the Nyatiti

5. The Otacho Young Stars – Magic Moment

6. Okumu K’Orengo – “Awak”

listen | watch

7. Otacho Young Stars – “Mr Manager” – original version recorded in the field

Watch

8. Otacho Young Stars – “Mr Manager” – studio version

Watch | Bandpage

9. Theme Tune – Tiny Moses in Nairobi

listen | watch | Bandpage 

Thanks for reading about the Singing Wells podcast number 2.

If you want to help the project you can donate using the button below:

The instruments now on display at the Manitoba Museum were donated to the museum in 2011 by a Canadian who had worked in Maseno, Kenya in the late 1960s.  During the course of his work there, he was often invited to gatherings in the villages around the area where musicians would be part of the evening.  At the end of the evening, the musicians would usually sell their instruments to foreigners in attendance.  The donor purchased 5 instruments in this way: two drums, one from the Luo tribe, the other from the Luhya tribe), one nyatiti (Luo), one orutu (Luo), and a fifth instrument called the litungu (Luo).

Click here to go to Andrea’s blog : The Beat of Kenya

Andrea Dyck, Curator of Contemporary Cultures, The Manitoba Museum

Andrea Dyck received her Master’s Degree in History from the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba, where her research focused on immigration and ethno-religious history. Andrea is responsible for research, collections, and exhibit development related to newcomers to Manitoba from the post-World War II period to the present. In particular, her interests are focused on the relationship that forms between immigrants and their receiving society, and how newcomers adapt and negotiate their way, as individuals and as a group, through the changes they encounter in their new lives.

Click here to download the episode: Singing Wells podcast #1

List of Music Played in Podcast #1:

click on the links to listen to and watch the performances

1. Theme Tune – Tiny Moses in Nairobi

listen | watch | Bandpage  

2. Nyerere Wa Konde Music Club – video

listen | watch | Bandpage

3. 4 the Mzinga 

listen | watch | Bandpage

4.  Mzee Nyerere Wa Konde, Bado and Winyo – Influences 

listen | watch | Bandpage

5. Francis Sembagare and Jesse Bukindu – Influences 

listen | watch | Bandpage

6. Winyo and the Mperwa Dancers – Influences

listen | watch | Bandpage

7. 71 Hours to Monday – The Global Edition

71 Hours to Monday – The Global Edition is available on the SMCC album – King Henry’s Tears, and available to download for free, in exchange for your email address here: http://emailunlock.com/abubillamusic/71-hours

8. Theme Tune – Tiny Moses in Nairobi 

If you’d like to help support the project, then you can donate using the button below:

1. Singing Wells is all About Ensuring that others can hear about the Macedonia Band:  We’ll provide background later, but let’s story with the story of Uganda Land of Freedom.    Let’s start with the music – click play and let the band be a soundtrack for this story…

We were recording in Northern Uganda, in the Teso region, scene of multiple rebel movements, land of terrible atrocities.    That was a decade ago, of course, and the land has returned to host villages of peace and music.   We met the Macedonia band and the leader told us a long story, which I will do no justice to in a few words.  During one of the rebel movements, the rebels came to his village.  The typical mode of operation on these visits was to kill the adult males, seize the boys for fighters and hurt and abuse the women.   The band leader tried to convince the leaders that he was a man of peace and music and his band would help the fighers and improve the morale of villages they occupied.  The majority of the rebels still voted to kill the band leader and his band, but the minority won out and spared the men.  The rest were filled with bloodlust, however, and moved to the next village and killed everyone.  The Macedonia Band, a Likembe band (think thumb pianos on steroids, sounding like a calypso band), played in the rebel camps and within the rebel held villages.   Aware that the political tides may change, the band leader was careful to not play rebel songs and stuck with very traditional songs far away from politics.   The tides did change, the government took over and again the band leader’s village was invaded; this time by the government seeking to punish rebel sympathizers.    The band leader was assaulted but convinced the government that he had not supported the rebels, but played for them as a hostage.  There was enough evidence that he had avoided political songs that the village was spared and the band re-adopted to be used by the government to build morale.    But, again there was bloodlust and the government forces aimed to take revenge on a neighboring village.    But they went to the village and the village elder came out, explaining that he was a member of the Macedonia band, and proceeded to lead the village men in singing Uganda Land of Freedom, some of them playing the Likembe.   The government forces in frustration spared the extended band and went to the next village.  Again, the elder led the village men in a rendition of Uganda Land of Freedom.  They went to village after village and everyone could play the song and everyone was a member of the band.  The band leader had learned after the slaughter of the village next door two years before and has spent the months in between teaching all the surrounding villages one song and helping them build and learn to play the Likembe.  He is credited with saving thousands.   That’s the power of music.   That is why the Singing Wells Project is important.   Here’s the Field Report from that day in Uganda.

2. Singing Wells is actually all about Tiny Moses:   We went to Kisoro Uganda to record the Batwa.   The Batwa were one of the forest tribes that were displaced from their forests to protect the mountain gorilla.  They are the sound track to unintended consequences – marginalised, abandoned, living on the worst land at the margins of Ugandan, Rawanda socieities.   But, oh what a soundtrack!   Tabu, co-founder of Singing Wells and one of the most knowledgeable men about East African music, concluded that the Batwa were the most musical tribe he’d ever heard.    We recorded group after group in awe.   As we stopped into one very poor village we stumbled upon Tiny Moses.   He had a hand-made guitar.   We asked if he played and he said yes.  We arranged for him to join us the next day to record.    He brought his bass player who beat boxed into a clay pot.   He brought DJ.   And he played.    We brought him back to Nairobi to record.   Here is his music and story, which has been shared with over 15,000 people:

3. Singing Wells is about capturing the music before it is gone.    Our mission is two-fold.  First, we hope to capture and distribute the wonderful music of East Africa.   There’s an urgency to this that was brought home to us when we recorded Okumu K’Orengo, one of the world’s greatest Nyatit players.   His last song for us was a funeral march.   His village thanked us because they noted that this great player, a legend across East Africa, had never been properly recorded.   He died two weeks later.   Here was the last song we recorded…

4. Singing Wells is about bringing the tribal music of East Africa to the latest generation of singer-songwriters, like Winyo:    However important it is to capture music before it is gone, this is necessary, but not sufficient.    We are not fossile collectors.  The second part of our mission is to bring this music to  the next generation, to inspire them to look to their heritage for inspiration before they look elsewhere.   We do this with ‘Influences’ artists… Like Winyo, an unbelievable Kenyan musician that was blown away by the music of the Batwa and couldn’t help but joining Jovah in song:

 5. Singing Wells is about bringing together tribal music and wonderfully talented young performers like Akello from Uganda…  We brought Akello to Northern Uganda.    She joined almost every band.   Here she is with the Wotman Cultural Group singing Amari…

Or with the Adungu Cultural Group singing Awinyo…

6.  Singing Wells is about capturing how cool, how relevant this music is through Magic Moments:    Listen to the Nyatiti for the first time with your eyes closed.  It is a kick drum.  It is a snare drum.  It is a bass.  It is guitar.    Listen:

Watch a real drummer.   Watch someone that drums through their souls.   And ask yourself whether East African Music is relevant.

7.  Singing Wells is about bringing you groups and sounds that are ready for prime time – someone just needed to give them a microphone.    Here are the Otacho Young Stars…. Why aren’t they the biggest sound of Kenyan music?    Has the Otacho ever sounded cooler?  Is this a song in priase of Mr Manager?  Or does it say something far deeper – why do we need to praise a leader simply for doing his job?   What does it say that this needs praise?

8.  Singing Wells is about discovering roots and recovering the great voice, as we’ve done in Malindi…

9.  Singing Wells is about Fusion.   Bringing music from Africa and England together.   We think something special happens when culture’s collide as we’ve tried to do in our annual fund raising videos:

10.  Singing Wells is a lot of hard graft with spectacular rewards… So who are we?  We are the music of East Africa – over 100 tribes in 40 villages so far.  We are a joint project sponsored by Ketebul Music and Abubilla Music.    We are a group of sound and video engineers who travel to villages with no electricity and running water and record their music with 12 microphones and 3 digital cameras.   We are a website that makes all this music available.  We are Winyo.  We are Akello.  We are dozens of African musicians determined to keep this music alive.    We are Andy and Vicki that raise the funds and produce the videos.     If you like  what you hear and see please visit us and support us.   We are here to help.  But we need help.   And if you looked carefully in the videos, you’ll see the Nyatiti and you’ll hear Ayub Ogado who supports us and inspires us.   We will leave you with his Kothbiro to remind us why this all so important and the rewards so ridiculously wonderful.

Jimmy

(Now you understand why the waiter called home!)

Our top 3 video hits

In third place, this is the Nyerere Wa Konde Music Club from Sita Village, Gede in Kenya’s Malindi District.  It was the very first video we uploaded to YouTube following our field visit to the Coast Region to record the music of the Mijikenda tribes.

Is second place is a video from our field visit to Kisoro in south west Uganda where we met and recorded the wonderful Batwa people. The music is performed by Kamuntu ‘Tiny’ Moses accompanied by our Influences artist Winyo.

And in first place with over 21,700 views is ’71 Hours to Monday’- a global track from Abubilla Music featuring musicians from Sao Paulo, Nairobi and London which was produced to support the launch of the Singing Wells project in 2011.

Keep watching!

Through Ugandan Eyes

We travel a road under African skies

And imagine your world through your soulful eyes

Their silence speaks volumes, a story to tell

We’ll re-tell your story, we are Singing Wells

 We travel a road to a world far apart

Your country, Uganda, it captures our heart

 Your eyes are a window that’s opening wide

To tell us your story that’s hidden inside

So sing us your story and dance us your life

Share with us your memories and don’t let them die

Sing us your history and dance us your life

And your musical culture will flourish and thrive

We travel a road under burnishing sun

Green and red landscape, our journey is long

Our reward is your welcome, your music, your grace

Your inquisitive eyes, your sweet smiling face

We travel a road to the beat of your drum

The calabash crash and the steel on your thumb

The bells and the strings, the whistle and holler

The dance in the ring, the leader, the follower

So sing us your story and dance us your life

And show us your world that is hidden inside

Sing us your history and dance us your life

In musical words where your heritage lies

We travel a road of music discovery

The map and the route to cultural recovery

We witness your history, your stories unfurl

We capture your memories to share with the world

You travel a road and must keep on walking

And peddling the wheels that keep your world turning

Years distance the pain of the conflict and strife

Your music your saviour, it once saved your life

So sing us your story and dance us your life

Your history’s a melody, you keep it alive

Sing us your memories, there’s volumes to tell

And we’ll capture your story, we are Singing Wells

On my last day in Uganda, just before I had to leave the rest of the team and travel back to London alone, Akello recorded one of her songs with the Watmon Cultural Troupe, in the gardens of the Airport Guesthouse.  It’s one of my favourites and brings back happy memories of an amazing experience.  Have a listen…

Victoria Denison

December 2012

More photos….

Each time the Singing Wells team embarks on a field recording visit we are joined by a talented musician who works with us on ‘Influences’ songs.  They work with us in the field and also in the Ketebul Music studios in Nairobi to produce this new material.

We believe our Influences series will refresh the origins of East African music and make it discoverable to a new generation of music fans.

Newly released Influences song – Missing

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.

71 Hours to Monday

Our very first ‘Influences’ song was 71 Hours to Monday. An original song from Abubilla Music re-mixed to include percussion from Sau Paulo and vocals from Nairobi. (Read more about the background to this track here)

For more videos from the Influences series click here

Meet our ‘Influences’ artists click here

Influences songs

This track features Jovah Nyiramajoro performing with Jesse Bukindu at Ketebul Music Studios. We discovered Jovah on the Singing Wells field trio to Uganda in November 2011.  She is from the Mperwa Batwa community, a small settlement of families just outside Kisoro.  Read our report from the trip here.

This next track is called Amahoro – a Batwa song from the Birara Dancers of Kisoro, accompanied here by Jesse Bukinda on guitar and Winyo on vocals.  This track was recorded live at the Traveller’s Rest Hotel in Kisoro, Uganda.

This is a track from ‘Tiny Moses’ who is also a Batwa from the Micyingo community living near Kisoro.  Tiny Moses plays a small, hand made guitar and here he performs with Winyo at the Ketebul Music studios. Read more here.

This is an Influences track performed on location in the field during our visit to Kenya in march 2012 to record the music of the Kajenjin tribes.   One of the most exciting moments of the trip was discovering this extraordinary musician from Kapsokwony, Ben Kisinja.  His music is typical of the Sabaot tribe and he plays the ‘burkandit’ – a guitar simliar to the nyatiti played by the Luo tribes.  Here he performs with Eddie Grey, one East Africa’s leading Jazz guitarists.

This track is by the Otacho Young Stars who we first met in December 2011 during our field visit to Western Kenya to record Luo music.  Experts on the traditional instruments the orutu and nyangile, we loved this group and invited them to record at the Ketebul Music studio a few months later.  Here they are performing ‘Mr Manager’ accompanied by session musicians and also Winyo with backing vocals. (Click here for blog post)

During our field visit to Northern Uganda we travelled with Akello, a singer/songwriter originally from an Acholi village near Gulu and now living in Kampala.  Here she is performing her own song ‘Amari’ accompanied by the wonderful Watmon Cultural Group. (Click here for blog post)

And here is Akello with another of her songs, this time accompanied by the Adungu Cultural Troupe who are based in Kampala (Click here for blog post)

]]> http://www.singingwells.org/singing-wells-news/listen-to-more-influences-tracks-from-singing-wells/feed/ 0 http://www.singingwells.org/singing-wells-news/music-of-the-batwa-video-playlist/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=music-of-the-batwa-video-playlist http://www.singingwells.org/singing-wells-news/music-of-the-batwa-video-playlist/#comments Sat, 02 Mar 2013 12:41:13 +0000 swadmin http://www.singingwells.org/?p=5507 In November 2011 the Singing Wells team travelled to Kisoro in SW Uganda to record the music of the Batwa, a marginalised group whose music and dance tells the story of their history, culture and the problems they face today.

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, including a grant from the Institute of International Education.