A brief follow-up to my post on Colombian music earlier this week (Part 7 of our El Dorado series). Here are a couple of songs that were on the long list for that post but were cut because they are cover versions. But they are too much fun to deprive you of them completely.
"Combate A Kung Fu" - Wganda Kenya
"Cumbia Del Pichamán" - Meridian Brothers
Watch out for some bonus Biddu in the first video (or viddu).
And we have reached Uganda. Musically it used to be seen as a bit of a backwater compared to its some of its neighbours like DR Congo and Kenya, but that has changed over the last ten years or so. After the emergence of Eddy Kenzo as a major pan-African star it is currently a bit of a pop powerhouse.
It is also a country where popular music and politics are inextricably linked. Earlier this year Eddy married the Energy Minister - in UK terms think Ed Miliband weds Dua Lipa - and was appointed an advisor to long-running president (and not very nice man) Yoweri Museveni.
This puts him firmly on the opposite side to fellow big name Bobi Wine who has been imprisoned and beaten up by government forces on a depressingly regular basis since he decided to stand against Museveni in the 2021 elections. A film made about his presidential campaign was nominated for an Oscar this year.
That is enough politics, let's crack on with the music. We will start with the oldest Ugandan track I have. It is a funky instrumental from 1974 by The Rwenzori's, named after the mountain range where many of the members came from. You can find it on Mr Bongo's "Record Club Volume 1" compilation.
One of the first popular music styles indigenous to Uganda was kadongo kamu which means 'one little guitar'. Originating back in the 1960s it was kept alive during the difficult Idi Amin years largely through the efforts of one man, Peterson T. Mutebi. You can read all about him here, and listen to Part 2 of the title track of his 1982 album below.
These days kadongo kamu has largely faded from view and this century the dominant form of popular music has been faster and shinier and heavily influenced by dancehall and afrobeat. There is still plenty of good stuff though as the next two selections show.
Jeff Korondo has been active since the late 1990s and as well as his music career he is the founder of an NGO called Music For Peace. This track is from 2003. I have not been able to find out any information about Stipper Man's humanitarian activities (or anything else about him) but he makes a jolly noise, as this tune from 2018 shows.
Readers with long memories and impeccable taste may remember me raving about an album called "Electro Acholi Kaboom From Northern Uganda" a couple of years ago. It featured lots of souped up versions of traditional acholi courtship songs and reminded me a lot of our own dear Tsonga Disco.
That album seems to be unavailable now but you can still get hold of a collection by Otim Alpha who was featured on it and was one of the pioneers of the scene. His album was released by the excellent Nyege Nyege Tapes label based in Kampala whose catalogue is worth checking out.
There is plenty of very good 'conventional' reggae from Uganda that I could have chosen for the MAR slot but I could not resist the charms of the Entebbe Eek-A-Mouse himself, Mr. Mankwa. Described as "a Ugandan Gibberish Dancehall Artist from the 90s" on the blurb for his "Saba Saba Sounds" EP, he is also the subject of a three-part documentary you can find on YouTube.
"Handsome Boy (E Wara) Pt 1&2" - The Rwenzori's
"Eno Ye Weekend Part 2" - Peterson Tusubira Mutebi & The Tames Band
"Kadi Iyeta" - Jeff Korondo
"Munzoleya" - Stipper Man
"Cam Ki lawoti II" - Otim Alpha
"A.U. (Mr. Mankwa)" - Mr. Mankwa
Eddy Kenzo may have fallen in with a bad crowd of late but his string of hits from 2014 still put a smile on my face when I hear them, so we'll start off the videos with the song that made his name. In the interest of balance Bobi Wine appears as well.
Its T time on our tour. T for Tanzania to be precise.
We have had some highs and lows on the odyssey but none to match Tanzania which has the distinction of being the site of Africa's highest and lowest points (the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro and the floor of Lake Tanganyika respectively). And there are lots of good things in between.
Those good things include many groovy tunes. The music of Tanzania has perhaps tended to be a bit overshadowed by that of its neighbours DR Congo, Kenya and Zambia, but it deserves to be heard. So let's crack on!
We will start with the greatest band that never was, or at least the greatest name for a band that never was. Back in 1975 the Vijana Jazz Band were riding high in the charts and were very keen to get their new material on the market, but that enthusiasm was not shared by their record company who wanted to finish milking the current singles first.
So the band popped over to Nairobi, recorded some tracks and found someone who was able to persuade the record company it was a new band and get the record released that way. The name of that imaginary band? Why, Koka Koka Sex Battalion, of course. You can find the Sex Battalion tracks plus other Vijana Jazz Band releases on this 2011 Sterns compilation.
You will have spotted that the Battalion boys were heavily influenced by the rumba rhythms rolling over the border from DRC. The same is true for many other Tanzanian bands from the 1970s to the present day. One such example is Twanga Pepeta International (sometimes to be seen without the International and sometimes called the African Stars Band, making them almost as confusing as the Sex Battalion). Formed in 1994, the shiny little number is from their 2006 album "Password".
Not everyone was lured by the shimmering guitar sound back then in the 1970s though. Some like Sunburst looked further west and south, taking their inspiration from the funky sounds emanating out of Nigeria etc and the Zambian rock scene.
They were only around for a few years but made some great music in that time. In 2016 Strut records released their complete recordings on a compilation called "Ave Africa". The track I have chosen was originally a B-side in 1973. Those were the days when they still had proper B-sides.
All the acts featured so far hail from mainland Tanzania, so we should probably pop over to Zanzibar to see what is happening there. Well, Siti Muharam for one, whose 2020 album "Siti Of Unguja" is worth buying for the cover alone. Her great-grandmother, Siti Binti Saad, was the first East African singer to be recorded nearly 100 years ago and was credited with popularising taarab music. Siti Muharam made this album to help to preserve her legacy and does so magnificently.
Sticking with current female performers we follow that with the title track from "Maisha", the debut album from the Zawose Queens released last year. The Queens are sisters Pendo and Leah Zawose and this is their take on the traditional polyrhythms and polyphonic singing of the Gogo people based mainly in the Dodola region of the country. I refuse to bow to demands to refer to them as Gogo girls.
Like Siti Muharam, the Queens have an impressive musical lineage. Their late grandfather was Hukwe Zawose, the most famous exponent of the Gogo musical tradition. I had not originally planned to include him in this post, but when I paid a visit to Flashback Records in Islington last weekend I found a copy of his album "Chibite" in the bargain bin. I took it as a sign.
"Chibite" came out in 1996 on Real World and is pretty much a one man show. Dr Zawose handles vocals, thumb piano, fiddle, flute and ankle bells and is helped out only by Charles Zawose (who I think is his son) on harmonies and all-important second thumb piano.
And so to the MAR slot. This time it goes to dAbo Mtanzania. I am not sure why he chooses to capitalise the A - perhaps he was named after former Manfred Mann singer Mike d'Abo? Whatever the reason, here is is with a track from last year's "Undisputed" album.
"Ujirani Mwema" - Koka Koka Sex Battalion
"Umasikini" - Twanga Pepeta International
"Black Is Beautiful" - Sunburst
"Alaminadura" - Siti Muharam
"Maisha" - The Zawose Queens
"Chilumi" - Hukwe Zawose
"Uncle Mapepe" - dAbo Mtanzania
We will start off the videos with one of the more obscure Tanzanian performers after which I will try to pander to your more populist tastes. So please all join me in giving a warm 27 Leggies welcome to Farrokh Bulsara from Stone Town in Zanzibar.
Welcome aboard, everyone, as the next leg of our odyssey takes us to South Sudan. After spending time here we will head on to its northern neighbour Sudan. The two were a single country until 2011 when 98% of he population of what is now South Sudan voted for independence.
South Sudan is the world's youngest officially recognised independent country, becoming a teenager back in July this year. Its early years have been troublesome with civil war, famine and many other challenges. Let us hope things improve for its citizens as it approaches adulthood.
When preparing this post I did some research to try to identify artists from previous generations born in Juba or the other towns and cities in South Sudan, but failed dismally. So all today's tunes date from the last 15 years or so.
We'll start with Mary Boyoi, who spent part of the 1990s in refugee camps in Ethiopia as a result of the civil war in Sudan, before returning home in the 2000s to undertake relief work and become a campaigner for independence.In 2009 she released "Election Jai" ("the elections are coming") and actually stood as a candidate herself.
Mary is still recording and judging by some of the videos on her YouTube channel has reinvented herself as a bit of a saucepot in recent years. Whether this has helped or hindered her political career I don't know.
Next up is Emmanuel Jal, probably the best known of today's artists. Like many of those featured in earlier legs of the journey his life story is quite extraordinary. He was a child soldier from the age of eight before being adopted by a British aid worker and smuggled out of the country to Kenya where he was educated.
It was in Kenya that he began his recording career in 2004 and he has gone on to enjoy a degree of global success, helped in part by being the subject of a documentary called "War Child" in 2008. Today's selection comes from an EP released in 2010 and was included on a 2012 album called "Sudan Votes Music Hopes Remixes" in 2012, which is were I found it. I can also recommend "Ceasefire", his collaboration with Adbel Gadir Salim, a renowned oud player from the north.
Ajak Kwai's biography starts in the same way as Mary and Emmanuel's, being displaced because of the civil war. She spent eight years in Egypt where she started performing before emigrating to Australia around the turn of the century. I have chosen a track from her 2008 album "Come Together". You can find that and her 2021 EP "Red Sands" on Bandcamp.
Gordon Koang is another South Sudanese who emigrated to Australia, albeit more recently. He happened to be there in 2013 putting on some shows for the local expats when renewed conflict broke out back home and he applied for refugee status. His music is based on the traditional music of the Nuer people. This song comes from his 2020 album "Unity".
All of which brings us to John Frog. No relation to Kermit, Crazy or the members of Paul McCartney's chorus, he was given the nickname "aguek" (meaning frog) by his parents due to him being a breech birth baby. He burst onto the scene in 2018 with "Guondo Sakit", jumping up to the top of the charts across East Africa (you know, like what a frog would do). I can do no better than bring you the hit.
We finish, as is only right and proper, with our far-famed Mandatory African Reggae slot. Barnabus Samuel is a bit of a polymath, describing himself as an artist, songwriter, activist, author, humanitarian and entrepreneur. I can't vouch for his full range of skills but his music is pretty decent. You can find several of his records on Bandcamp. This track is on "Sambara" released in 2021.
"Election Jai" - Mary Boyoi
"Kuar" - Emmanual Jal
"Anazalana" - Ajak Kwai
"Kone Ke Ran" - Gordon Koang
"Guondo Sakit" - John Frog
"Suluta Wa Fata" - Barnabus Samuel
Tomorrow I'm flying off to South Africa for a couple of weeks to visit the local Gogginses. If I had been making the journey 50 years ago on BOAC we would most probably have stopped off in Nairobi to refuel. Which makes it fairly apt that we are visiting Kenya in our virtual tour today.
If I was making that hypothetical journey back in the 1970s it would have been very tempting not to reboard the plane but stay on in town, because back then Kenya was a happening place. It was the regional hub for musicians and many flocked to Nairobi and Mombasa from DR Congo, Tanzania and the like to perform and record.
That made it a bit complicated when it came to selecting tracks from that era. I went through the two excellent "Kenya Special" compilations put out by Soundway Records about ten years ago weeding out acts that were not predominantly Kenyan. But there were plenty of goodies still left, including the first three of today's selections.
The tracks by The Mombasa Vikings and Ndalani 77 Brothers were released in 1975 and 1977 respectively and can both be found on the original "Kenya Special" album. The Rift Valley Brothers are on Volume 2. I have not been able to find out anything about any of them, so let's just lean back and enjoy the groove.
Not everybody was dazzled by the bright lights of Nairobi back then though. Way out west in Vihiga County, near Lake Victoria and the Ugandan border, the Luhya people preferred to do their own thing. In 2016 some bright spark at Raw Music International decided to collate some of the locally released singles from that era on an album called "Country Music of Western Kenya". This particular track features Brown Amukhoye, Shem Tupe and Justo Osala.
If you head south-west from Vihiga County you quickly find yourself in Siaya County, home of Ogolla Nyundo (Lazaro Ogolla Oloo as his dear old Mum knows him). Unlike all the other acts featured today I have been able to find out all about him thanks to a video interview posted on YouTube last month. So if you are interested in learning more about him, his music and the culture of the Luo people, head over there.
Back already? Then you are just in time for some Mandatory African Reggae. This time out we bring you Nile Dawta. Her complete bio reads "Nile Dawta is a Kenyan-based progressive musician, fusing roots and reggae music, with conscious chants to create a blend of uplifting and melodic African inspired vibrations: to educate, entertain and motivate towards social change". So now you know. This and the Ogolla Nyundo track are both from 2019.
"Mama Matotoya" - The Mombasa Vikings
"Nzaumi" - Nyalani 77 Brothers
"Mucang'ang'o Ugiraga Mukindirio" - The Rift Valley Brothers
"Namulia Ayilenia Wangu" - Brown Amukhoye, Shem Tupe & Justo Osala
"Caro Nyaugenya" - Ogolla Nyundo
"#Jeshi" - Nile Dawta
We start the video with the man who may have the greatest stage name of all time. It is between him and Tedious Matsito who may well feature when we finally get to Zimbabwe. That is still several lifetimes away.
