"Sometimes lions do wander into my garden, but the dog usually hears them first and warns me"...Alan Donovan, the owner of the African Heritage House tells me as we set up our recording equipment in his grounds.
Thanks to our Kenyan guides Tabu Osusa and Steve Kivutia, we have arranged to record our music sessions at the African Heritage House outside Nairobi, home to the finest Art Collection in Africa.
The African Heritage House
Ayub Ogada lives near here and owes much of his meteoric rise to fame in world music circles to Alan Donovan, the owner/designer of this most beautiful of houses overlooking the vast Nairobi National Park.... and yes, the tall animals in the distance are indeed giraffes.
Ayub, now his neighbour, has reached a mass market through Peter Gabriel's record label. He is passionate about Kenya and about the nyatiti and has returned to his roots in both these regards....
Alan, a somewhat reclusive Art Collector has spent the last 43 years collecting and supporting the art and artists of Africa, amassing a collection of priceless paintings, sculpture, weavings, drawings and other extraordinary objet d'art. He saw Ayub's talent early on, presumably much in the same way as he noticed promising art or artists and supported his early career.
Ayub Ogada
Ayub talks about his nyatiti harp like a friend, definitely a female friend. He loves his instrument. He loves the landscape. And he loves his roots here. This is the instrument of the Luo people (famously this is the tribe that President Obama is related to). Traditionally the nyatiti is played very much 'in your face' forcefully, he tells me, and he has evolved a softer, gentler sound'. Instead of lying it in its side he plays it upright like a lyre and instead of tapping the instrument with a metal ring attached the the big toe ( you have to be quick supple of limb to do this) he adds rhythm tapping the wood with his hands, djembe style. To this he adds his distinctive soft sweet voice.
Crooners of an older generation were our second artists of the day. The Sega Sega Band travelled for 7 hours by bus from their village in Western Kenya to see us. The roads are not good and the government has banned travelling at night due to the number of accidents on the roads, so this was the only way we could meet in the time we had.
The Sega Sega Band
These are two ways the Luo traditions are being kept alive in Kenya, but we have only scratched the surface of the many tribes and traditions here. Our hosts, Tabu Osusa and Steve Kivutia at Ketebul music, will continue their not-for-profit search for traditional music from all over East Africa.
The Irony is that while the art and music of centuries and even millennia, is being preserved and developed in this beautiful spot, there are plans afoot to demolish the African Heritage house where we are sitting in order to run a railway line through it.
Even Art it seems cannot stand in the way of progress...
Lindsay
