I’m new to Singing Wells and I’ve spent the last few weeks listening to pretty much every song on the site, getting to know the amazing traditional music of East Africa! It was tough to pick, but for my first blog post I thought I’d share my top 5 songs so far. 1. Otacho Young…
In March 2014, Ketebul Music and The Abubilla Music Foundation came together to record a very special album for Singing Wells. Our goal was to record some of the most important ‘bridge’ artists in Kenya – a group of musicians who have built a connection between the music of their villages and modern music. They…
Many hundreds of recordings by an early generation of Kenyan musicians are currently being returned to the communities in which these songs were made in the 1950s by English ethnomusicologist, Hugh Tracey. The repatriation of these recordings began in August, during a two-week pilot project in Kenya’s Rift Valley led by Prof Diane Thram, Director…
There’s now a new way for audiences to discover and listen to traditional East African musicians and music groups recorded by Singing Wells. Head over to our Bozza page here. About Bozza “Bozza is a plug & play solution for musicians, poets, photographers & film makers to promote and sell their digital products to their fans…
Another meeting with a dear friend. Another chance to tell Singing Wells stories…
James Isabirye James is a very passionate, hard working man. He has dedicated his time and efforts to multiple projects, across the world, in order to support traditional Ugandan music; he is a lecturer and music researcher for the Department of Performing Arts at the Kyambogo University, Uganda, he founded the Nile Beat Artists, whose…
1. International Library of African Music The International Library of African Music (ILAM) was founded by the great Hugh Tracey – whose efforts to record African music can be found in the History blog – in 1954. What is particularly significant about this African Music archive is that it is actually in Africa; on its…
The history of African music recording and archiving can be seen most clearly and compellingly by detailing the history of a few key individuals, who were pioneers in their field. At the turn of the 20th Century, a colonised Africa was viewed as backward and void of any real culture worth preserving, which is why…
