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Welcome to Singing Wells’ Top 20 Moments It’s been nearly 10 years of travel, discovery and music. We’ve travelled across East Africa with the aim of bringing traditional music to a wider audience. With our Youtube channel now surpassing 5 million views, we wanted to celebrate the last 10 years of sharing the beautiful music of East Africa with you. Each week, we will post a new video counting down our Top 20 Singing Wells moments and memories….
Fadhilee Itulya Staff Profile
…Relations and Diplomacy. His first break in professional music was at the 2008 edition of Spotlight on Kenyan Music, where he represented Nairobi with his song ‘Jawabu’, which features on the compilation album. Other than the guitar he also plays the drums and the chivoti. During gigs he is backed by the three-girl group, Karama. Tetu accompanies him on the djembe and Andrew Ngatia on bass. Together they call themselves Fadhilee&Friends. He has wr…
Day Three: January 20th, 2019 Story
…the Mahama tree. We recorded eight songs with them: Balogi Wa Ngamboshi: This is about the Wizards of Balogi, where wizardry is perceived as a negative thing, evoking witch doctors and snake oil salesmen. Simiyu: A song for praise for the region. Bahuni ba ng’wanza: A song referring to local women of questionable virtues Balimi: A song about farming where the band brought up children from the village and taught them about hoeing the soil to the so…
Baseki Group
…e Mahama tree. We recorded eight songs with them: Balogi Wa Ngamboshi: This is about the Wizards of Balogi, where wizardry is perceived as a negative thing, evoking witch doctors and snake oil salesmen. Simiyu: A song for praise for the region. Bahuni ba ng’wanza: A song referring to local women of questionable virtues Balimi: A song about farming where the band brought up children from the village and taught them about hoeing the soil to the so…
Biluli Dutwa Group
…l crowd pleaser! We recorded eight songs with them: Balogi Wa Ngamboshi: This is about the Wizards of Balogi, where wizardry is perceived as a negative thing, evoking witch doctors and snake oil salesmen. Simiyu: A song for praise for the region. Bahuni ba ng’wanza: A song referring to local women of questionable virtues Balimi: A song about farming where the band brought up children from the village and taught them about hoeing the soil to the so…
Bukaala Twesitule Troupe Group
…he group leader is Ikula Charles. The group was started in 1991 with over 200 members, 50 of whom are still active. Lead vocalist: Jane Babirye Musical style is Baganda. Song meanings “Bana Uganda Banange”: It is about a particular brand of beer called Senator Lager. It has contributed to the local economic development because it uses ingredients grown in Uganda. “Abag’ageno”: Talks about HIV and the factors influencing the spread of HIV and how t…
Support Singing Wells Page
…funded by the Abubilla Music Foundation a UK registered charity (reg. no: 1142173). Our work to record, archive and share the music of East Africa is funded by donations. Funds are used to support our field recording trips, provide a permanent music archive and also to help the communities we visit gain an income from their music. You can help us support music communities in East Africa by sponsoring a song, a music group or a whole field recordi…
Andy Patterson Staff Profile
…he University of Surrey as part of their Tonmeister course, graduating in 2005. He has since worked in the music industry in a variety of roles, performing both engineering and technical duties for a wide range of clients, from the world of pop music through to film composers. He has worked with Abubilla Music for around 5 years and has co-engineered and produced all of the releases to date. His past clients have included the late Gerry Rafferty,…
Watmon Cultural Group Group
…e war against Idi Amin’s regime, many people were looking for an escape, and the troupe presented just such an opportunity. The group performed for President George Bush during a state visit to Uganda. They were also recorded in 2012 for the BBC’s World Routes album, presented by ethnomusicologist Lucy Duran. Their performance was described by Sounds and Colours as an ‘instrumental extravaganza’. Sources: Sounds and Colours www.dailymonitor.co.ug…
Day 2 – Sunday 2nd July 2017 Story
…yer’s imagination and can be adapted to the occasion and/or to tell the praise of a different person. The fact that Meshack picked up the instrument only once his father had passed away brought about several hypothesis on the meaning of this generational gap and questioned the possibility of an existing cultural taboo concerning two generations of players from the same home playing actively at the same time. From K’Orengo’s homestead we went on to…
Privacy Policy Page
…e to ask you, but sites like http://www.bbc.co.uk do – and you will notice them asking you about it. The ruling was passed a few years back, and they gave a grace period which expires on the 26th May 2012- hence we’ve waited as long as we can before adding this info. Any Questions? If you have any questions on the policy then please email us at info (@) abubillamusic.com Thanks!…
Days 6 to 8 – Thursday 6th July 2017 to Saturday 8th July 2017 Story
…ed in the form of short notes: Day 7: Recording of the making of obokano, an 8 string instrument from the Kisii ethnic community demonstrated by Dominic Ogari, a music instructor at Kenyatta University in Nairobi. Day 8: Saturday 8th July 2017: Recording of an in‐depth interview with John Otieno ‘Rapasa’, our fixer who had previously travelled to Lake Region with us. In this interview he explained his personal journey to becoming a professional ny…
What We Do Page
…on, our Abubilla Music sound engineer. The first field visit was in March 2011 when we travelled from Nairobi to the Kenyan coast to record the music of the tribes of the Mijikenda. Since then we have completed more field visits in both Kenya and Uganda. Our long term goal is to visit each country in East Africa and research, document and record the music and dance of the major traditional music styles of each region. Click on the following links…
Day Four: 10 March 2022 (Rongo) Story
…of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2014, a trip that included Ontiri Bikundo, one of the musicians we were scheduled to record that evening in Rongo. Ontiri is a master of the obukano, an instrument which has an indelible history among the Abagusii community of Western Kenya. The obukano is used more as percussive instrument and an accompaniment by a soloist. However, the nyatiti and the litungu played by the…
Day One: The Iteso People and their Music Story
Sunday, February 18th, 2018: This day is all about the Iteso people and their music. The Iteso are a smaller ethnic community in Kenya but has very distinctive music. In Uganda, they are more Iteso, located in Soroti. Its language is Ateso. The Iteso are Nilotics, one of the people of the Nile. We drove to the town of Adungosi to record the Omong’oluk Traditional Dancers. The current leader is Ibriam Aduomg Omong’oluk, the grandson of the founder…
Day Five: January 22, 2019 Mwanza Continued Story
…Kagera Bukoba and part of the Wahaya Community, this group was formed in 2000 and performs in the Akasimbo style. Their instruments are: Kangote (Drums), Akafotho (hand whistling), Enganja: Clapper – two wooden ‘bricks’ struck together, and they wear Ebisheshe (grasses). We recorded four performances: Wachumba Walya: A song about someone who is too mean-spirited to support his community even though he has lots of money, it is about a man “who eat…