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Music History
By: tutulu Date: October 16, 2017, 12:24 pm
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This is a must have music for any music afficianado.
Kenya's popular music history in one volume - Daily Nation
Tour of popular music landscape in Kenya
SATURDAY OCTOBER 7 2017
In Summary
In the 1950s and 1960s female fans of the Ogara Boys Band wore
the fashionable “Ogara Skirt” that also came to be known as the
benga skirt after the group’s music style.
Oh, let’s not forget music legend Daniel Owino Misiani once
claimed without much proof that “benga” was derived from his
mother’s maiden name.
ADVERTISEMENT
By TOM ODHIAMBO
In the 1950s some Kenyans travelled to what is now the
Democratic Republic of Congo in search of better economic
prospects and upon their return popularised the term “benga”
(“call” in Lingala), supposedly lending a name to a music genre.
But before you swallow that as musical gospel truth, consider
this other explanation: the Luo word obengore generally refers
to state of looseness or lack of rigidity — but in the musical
context more than half a century ago some used it to mean being
relaxed and happy — just like when listening to benga.
But that’s not all, there is another tune.
In the 1950s and 1960s female fans of the Ogara Boys Band wore
the fashionable “Ogara Skirt” that also came to be known as the
benga skirt after the group’s music style.
Oh, let’s not forget music legend Daniel Owino Misiani once
claimed without much proof that “benga” was derived from his
mother’s maiden name.
BATTLEFIELD
The origin of benga music has been a battlefield since the 1960s
but the distinctive fast-paced beat remains one of the most
authentic sounds that spans ethnic and regional lines — and goes
beyond the borders.
For a country that typically struggles with issues of ethnic
division and collective cultural identity—including the elusive
national dress — the variants of the music genre played across
the country mark a rare triumph.
Shades of Benga: The Story of Popular Music in Kenya 1946-2016
by Ketebul Music (2017), a new remarkable 650-page book,
outlines the significance of the beat and its place in Kenya’s
entertainment scene.
“Benga is the most ubiquitous sound in Kenya and is played in
Nyanza, Rift Valley, Central, Western and Eastern regions among
others. It has also influenced other beats that have heavily
borrowed from it over the years,” says Mr Tabu Osusa, the
Executive Director of Ketebul Music who led a team of
researchers in the book project that took almost four years to
put together.
MOTIVATION
One concern that motivated him and his team to archive materials
in the book, he says, was hearing statements “including from
well-known media personalities”, that the local “show business
started in the late 1990s with the emergence of the celebrity
culture”.
“They point out that earlier, music production was of very poor
quality and musicians had neither a sense of fashion nor stage
presence. Nothing could be further from the truth,” says Mr
Osusa in his preface to Shades of Benga, pointing to a vibrant
and professionally run music scene dating to as far back as the
1950s.
But this is not a book exclusively about benga.
It traces the origins and influences of modern Kenyan music from
World War II to the present.
From the more urban sounds of rumba, funk and hip-hop to
traditional beats like mwomboko, ohangla and taarab, Shades of
Benga goes into great detail to profile Kenya’s music giants
alongside their pictures — including forgotten legends like
River Road’s session musicians — as well as the origins and
evolution of various genres.
WHERE THERE'S A VACUUM..
Then there are sections on popular clubs and producers that
shaped the entertainment scene, fashion, broadcasters and
debates like the business of hip-hop or commerce versus ministry
in gospel music.
“Where there is a vacuum, there is likely to be fake history. We
put together the book so that the present and future generations
can have a credible reference point about Kenyan music. Kenya
has been suffering from an identity crisis and we seem to
embrace and borrow foreign, mostly Western, music thinking that
our own is not cool enough. It is important to change this
attitude,” Mr Osusa told Lifestyle.
In the preface to Shades of Benga, he writes: “Over the years, I
have consistently challenged young people in Kenya, my beloved
country, to explain why they look up solely to musicians from
the west as their role models. This misplaced perception of
excellence and worth is more evident among Kenya’s urban youth
who tend to consider anything associated with the rural
environment as primitive.”
Mr Osusa notes that unlike some Kenyan artistes “who try to
sound more American than Americans even when singing in
Kiswahili”, many popular artistes from countries like Nigeria
and South Africa have their songs grounded in local beats.
“It is rare to hear a Nigerian artiste pronounce pidgin words
like an American. They remain authentic. That is perhaps why
their music is popular across the world, including in Kenya,” he
says.
Shades of Benga takes readers to the beginnings of modern
popular music in Kenya, right from the 13th East African
Entertainment Unit of the King’s African Rifles – which is where
the famed Fundi Konde began his musical career.
THE AFRICAN BAND
The East African Entertainment Unit would later become the
African Band, after the demobilisation of the soldiers, led by
Peter Colmore.
The African Band, the authors note, performed for audiences in
sessions that also had comedy sketches. If you were tracing the
roots of popular Nairobi-based military band Maroon Commandos,
you would find them from the 13th East African Entertainment
Unit.
The love of Congolese music dates back to the 1950s with the
arrival in Kenya of Mwenda Jean Bosco and Masengo Edouard.
The authors say this about the pair: “The arrival of Congolese
musicians Mwenda Jean Bosco and Masengo Edouard from the
province of Katanga in Belgian Congo had a profound effect on
the musical trends not just in Kenya but also in the greater
East African region. Both Mwenda and his cousin Masengo plucked
their guitars with the thumb and fore-finger, using an intricate
finger-picking technique.”
These musicians travelled all over the country, playing to
African audiences in clubs, singing in French and Kiswahili.
They were also lead performers in a television show, Aspro
African Variety Show, which was recorded from 1959.
LOVE AFFAIR
And that was probably the beginning of the love affair between
Kenyan music fans and Congolese musicians, a relationship that
peaked in the 1970s when many talented artistes from the
continent’s musical giant were based in Kenya — and remains
strong.
Shades of Benga carries you along on a musical journey that is
divided into several sections. For instance, there are “labels
and studios”, most of which are defunct. Not many today would
remember Jambo Records, which the authors note was the “first
independent East African record label”, established in 1947.
East African Sound Studios established the East African Records
Limited, which recorded a variety of music in the region.
Several recording companies were established in the country by
the 1960s but many were either wound up or sold to African
producers in the late 1960s due to the Africaniasation policy.
The authors note that Oluoch Kanindo of POK Music Stores is
probably the “most successful music producer in Kenya”.
Mr Kanindo, a one-time MP and assistant minister who died in
2014, had musical interests that went beyond Kenya. He worked
with the Congolese greats such as Franco, Verkys Kiamuangana and
Tabu Ley, according to the authors.
And his name remains alive to date in Zimbabwe where the variant
of benga is refered to as “Kanindo” or “Sungura” — so-called
after his record labels.
All this is in what is really the “introduction” of Shades of
Benga, what the authors call “the pioneers”, which is where you
will meet the likes of Paul Mwachupa, Fundi Konde, Fadhili
William, Ben Nicholas (a great Kenyan jazz musician, well known
in Congo and other parts of Africa but hardly known in Kenya),
Daudi Kabaka, Peter Akwabi, Isaya Mwinamo, Ben Blastus
O’Bulawayo, Robbie Armstrong, the Ashantis, and Sam Kahiga,
among others.
But ‘what is benga music?’, ask the authors. benga largely
originates from among the Luo community of Nyanza. The authors
argue that “Benga’s most distinctive feature is its fast-paced
rhythmic beat and the staccato technique of plucking the
guitar.”
BORROWED TECHNIQUE
In benga, the lead guitar loads it over rhythm and bass. Benga
musicians seem to have borrowed the technique from their kinsmen
who played the traditional Luo lyre, nyatiti.
There is no doubt that benga, like many musical forms, borrowed
from other genres. But artistes refashioned the guitar to do
their bidding and ended up with a product that has spread
throughout the country and the region.
What Shades of Benga offers about the world of Kenyan benga is
enough to whet the appetite of any lover of the sound.
But, like the genre itself, what you will read in the book is
only a part of a world that is complex, thrilling, full of
intrigues; a world that has produced some of the most celebrated
Kenyan musicians, but also a world that remains unexploited in
many ways.
DESERVES ITS OWN BOOK
It is a world that deserves its own book and archive. However,
Shades of Benga does a great job of tracing the details of such
names as John Ogara, Ochieng’ Nelly, Orwa Jasolo, David Amunga,
George Ramogi, D O Misiani, Collela Mazee, Kakai Kilonzo, Joseph
Kamaru, DK Mwai, Sukuma bin Ongaro, Kipchamba ara Tapotuk (the
spiritual guide of Kipsigis popular music), Kalenjin Sisters,
Princess Jully, Okatch Biggy etc.
These names are a tiny but significant representation of benga
in Kenya, which should challenge other researchers to look for
and record for posterity the stories of the rest of benga
musicians.
In the profiles are interesting gems of information, including
on controversial but talented artistes like Ochieng Kabaselleh.
Interesting connections are also revealed—like that flamboyant
artiste Akothee’s father Jose Kokeyo was also a musician.
The rest of Shades of Benga takes one on a whirlwind tour of the
Kenyan musical landscape as well as the world of art, culture,
entertainment and its linkages to the rest of the world.
Thus one enters the world of “Rumba in the City” of Nairobi, a
world populated by discos; live bands; visiting musicians; local
“foreign” bands such as Orchestre Les Mangelepa, Super Mazembe
Baba Gaston and Orchestre Virunga of Samba Mapangala among
others.
Later one enters the world of local genres such as Ohangla,
Mwomboko, Akorino music, Taarab; then one is transported back to
the ‘Funky Seventies’, fusions and experiments; after which one
encounters gospel music.
By the time one reaches the world of what is described as ‘urban
expressions’ – jazz, Afro-fusion etc – and hip-hop, meeting the
likes of K South Flava, Jua Cali, Prezzo, Octopizzo, Camp Mulla
and the tens of one week wonder song bands, one would have
travelled a full cycle of Kenyan music, and not just Benga.
In other words, one is able to see the connection between the
old and the new, the past and future, the origins and the
refashioned.
What Shades of Benga does is to offer the reader – really the
listener – insight into the sounds, senses, sensibilities,
fashions, politics, struggles, successes, failures, songs,
dances, names, bands, moments, connections, controversies,
conventions, conversions, cadences, rhythms etc, that have made
Kenyan music and its cultures over the past 70 years.
This is a treasure trove not just for music lovers but to all
interested in Kenyan culture and how it has fashioned our
identity, collectively and individually.
Ketebul has also been involved in various well-researched
projects, including Retracing the Benga Rhythm, Retracing Kikuyu
Popular Music, Retracing Kenya’s Funky Hits and Retracing
Kenya’s Songs of Protest. But Shades of Benga was probably the
most ambitious, considering the sheer size of research involved
across the country.
Mr Osusa says most of Kenya’s music and related material are
poorly stored in various facilities and hopes more can be done
to make it more accessible.
It is also a shame, he says, that there is no hall of fame or
proper recognition for those who have played an important role
in the entertainment scene.
“But it is not too late. This can be done posthumously. We
cannot act as though these guys never existed,” he says. Mr
Osusa hopes Kenyans can be proud of their music and says more
space — both in terms of airplay and facilities like social
halls — need to be provided for the diverse sounds available.
“We need to rediscover ourselves and the information in Shades
of Benga is one step towards that,” he says.
Dr Odhiambo is a lecturer at the University of Nairobi.
HTML http://www.nation.co.ke
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