Stories > 11. Masters of the Nyatiti 2017

Day one of our field mission was originally reserved for travel, for the road from Nairobi to Kisumu City. However, as our schedule was going to be tight, and some of the preliminary work had not been completed, we opted for a semi‐formal preparative interview with John Otieno ‘Rapasa’, a young nyatiti player based in…

We started day two with a visit to Meshack at his late father’s home in Umala village, Alego constituency (Siaya County). His setting up for playing brought about a discussion and interesting notes on the accompanying “equipment” traditionally used when playing the nyatiti. These include: badiz (a piece of cloth tied to the player’s ankle…