BaraBara.fm [v.3] - A Journey into the Sound of Kenya » Nairobi

Arriving at Nairobi

Agnieszka — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:35:41 +0000

If you arrive at Nairobi it always takes some time to feel comfortable. After taking a cab at the airport you usually stuck in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam.
2 hours and 10 miles later a crowd of honking cars is waiting for you at Tom Mboya street.
Especially if you come from Kisumu – this very relaxed city of the Nyanza region- it ´s a big changeover to leave the airplane and to throw oneself into the fray of Nairobi.
The following musical extract gives you an impression about this atmosphere.
For the music I used two small traditional drums, I played with a side-stick, a small kenyan shaker, an old kalimba which I bought at Kariokor market and a Marimba.
http://www.barabara.fm/videoblog/music/nairobi-bounce.mp3 ^Nairobi

Olith Ratego Children´s Song

Agnieszka — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:38:37 +0000

Four days before we went back to Germany I met with Olith Ratego. Olith is part of the younger nairobian music scene that still has a strong relation to its cultural roots. Nevertheless musicians like Olith or Makadem try to find their own style and their own voice based on their musical roots.
For example Olith is strongly influenced by the traditional Dodo singers of his region. He is also a very good friend of Ogoya Nengo who lives very close to the village where Olith grew up.
Oilth and me recorded three very nice songs.
This week I began to work on a very simple and very short song that sounds a little bit like an african chlidren´s song.
http://www.barabara.fm/videoblog/music/olith.mp3 ^{Olith Children´s Song}

Tonight: Sven Kacirek and guests in concert

monade — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 09:48:39 +0000

Tonight Sven will give a concert with a couple of the musicians we met during the journeys to the West and East of Kenya.
I am pretty sure, this will be a really great event…

While Agnieszka was working on creating a website for the Muziki wa Kenya project of the Goethe-Institut Nairobi, Sven rehearsed with three groups of musicians for the concert today. So we had no time to upload further audio and video reports from the very exciting and extensive journeys until now…

1st tour finished

monade — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:32:33 +0000

A short review of the 9 days trip to the western side of Kenya:
We travelled from the border to Uganda in the northern part of Nyanza to the adjacent country in the south which is Tanzania.
It was great to see the landscape during the drives, the different people walking along the road and small markets in between which are located among the many small townships around. The colorfulness of all of them is impressive. You see women with beautiful suits wearing big bags or cans on their heads gracefully and lightly. Students of different schools are wearing matching school uniforms. Cows and coats graze on the edge of the roads and of course taxi drivers, shop keepers and many others engaged with their own private businesses.
As already mentioned in earlier posting we met many interesting, warmhearted musicians and made a lot of recordings and video shootings which have still to be reviewed.
In the evening we took a cab to Kisumu Airport to go back to Nairobi by plane.

http://www.barabara.fm/videoblog/music/17-3Flugzeug.mp3 ^{after the landing}

The main city of Kenya bid us welcome with one of these incessant traffic jams. Unfortunately Nairobi does not have a subway. Therefore the whole city is a never ending jam between 7.00 – 9.00 in the morning and 5 and 8 in the evening. After all the air was definitely better at Kisumu

Tonight: Sven Kacirek in Concert

monade — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 12:38:24 +0000

Tonight Sven will play one of the two upcoming concerts at the Goethe-Institut Nairobi. The second will be on April 4th, after the trips to Nyanza and to the Coast. We are looking forward to seeing how the people will react on it.

work and dancing in Nairobi

monade — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:01:55 +0000

Sven has set up his equipment at the auditorium and is rehearsing for the concert. He has already met with a young Nyatiti player from Nairobi called Ratai and finally Sven and Ratai did the first recording for the barabara-project.

http://barabara.fm/videoblog/music/ratai_060309.mp3 ^{First Recording/Ratai}

I was busy working on the barabara-website. Now we are all going to the finissage of an exhibition that took place at the Goethe-Institut: ‘It’s a pity that we only exist in the future’. Our friend DJ Andi Teichmann came from Berlin to play one of his amazing sets at the opening.
The party is taking place at a bar close to the institute, a publication accompanying the exhibition will be launched, djs are going to play music, I’m curious to see how and where the people party.

Arrival at Goethe-Institut Nairobi

monade — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:12:44 +0000

The 1st working day @ Goethe-Institut right in the centre of Nairobi. A lot of huge business buildings, shopping malls, small shops and restaurants make you first feel, like in many other metropolitan cities.

At the Goethe-Institut we meet the very nice people working here: Marie, Katharina, Barbara, Irene, Peter, Anne, Julia, Patrick, James, Judy, Esther and Johannes. Today there are many excellent german speeking Africans at the Institut: German teachers from South Africa to Camerun, from Mozambique to Cote d’Ivoire who are having a teachers training seminar.
We had lunch with Johannes at a Swahili restaurant called the Kingfisher (Koinange Street) and one of these excellent coffees at Java, a local coffee house where the busy CBD crowd hangs out. Sven spent the afternoon at the National Theatre and met some of the local musicians. We stay for supper at the terrace of Kengeles (also Koinange Street) and call it a day.

1st video recording: Sven preparing playbacks

monade — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:26:11 +0000

Here is the first session: preparing playbacks for the field and voice recordings in Kenya:

Sven prepairing playbacks for Kenya