In this second episode of What’s Up Africa in Kenya, Ikenna takes on one of East Africa’s premier rugby clubs, The Harlequins. Team members twice his size are quick to pummel him during practice. Catch the first episode from WUA in Kenya below. OKA fav Just A Band toss Ikenna into a hotel pool (his Kenyan tour is rife with physical injury so far).
KG Omulo plays hard-hitting Afrofunk tunes influenced by a rural Kenyan childhood spent listening to Motown grooves and East & Western African classics. While still a teenager in Kenya, KG and his friends sang in a barber-shop style trio playing songs somewhere in between doo wop and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. A subsequent move to the States found him tackling new arrangements alongside some of Central Florida’s chief brass and string players. Hear his guitar-laden, horn infused Ayah Ye! Moving Train debut LP, out today, in its entirety and catch a clip for album cut “Quality Women” below!
Ayah Ye! Moving Train by kgomulo
Quality Women from KG Omulo on Vimeo.
The concept behind Just A Band‘s new video came about from a challenge — two Norwegian filmmakers in Kenya dared the band to shoot a video “with a bunch of constraints, such as having to include a movie reference… starting with A Clockwork Orange.” In response, the boys suited up in an array of improvised costumes and filmed this minstrel-like, ’20s feel clip for “Huff + Puff” in the outskirts of Nairobi.
Watch Elsaphan Njora, Kevin (K2) Maina and all of JAB duke it out and throw down some serious moves in A Tale of Graceless Shuffling above. The video-challenge is a part of the upcoming documentary The Big C. Find “Huff + Puff” on Just A Band’s excellent 82 LP.
OKA contributor Kate Bomz put us on to this newish video for the song “I Don’t Wanna Be Alone (Shukuru)” by Tanzanian rapper AY and Kenyan afro-pop band Sauti Sol. “Shukuru” means “thank you,” or “gratitude” in Swahili so we thought it a fitting match for this season of thanks in the United States.
“Mombasa’s finest” Ally B is smitten by Nairobi-based crooner Size 8 in this romantic-woes clip for their collaborative single “Silali.” It’s sparkly-fine Kenyan pop, crafted by Homeboyz, and possibly named after a sleeping volcano.
We’ve been upping eclectic Nairobi trio Just A Band since day one — from the time their blaxploitation spoof became “Kenya’s first viral hit” to their recent BLNRB collaborations and Okaysummer Party throw-downs.
For Africa In Your Earbuds #5, JAB’s DJ Nairobi Dhobi (aka Dan) and DJ Bonyeza Kidude (aka Jim) hit us up with a 41-minute mix that plays in the vein of their group’s cross-pollinating style — an Afro-futurist blend of European house, hip-hop, and funk that’s almost impossible to pin down with genre specifics.
In crafting AIYE #5, the JAB boys mentioned wanting to integrate vinyls they listened to as kids in the 80s, showcase geographical diversity and, quite simply, make people dance. They succeed at all three, seamlessly weaving tracks by Ali Farka Touré, Black Coffee, Baaba Maal, Hugh Masekela, Sam Fan Thomas, Little Dragon, SBTRKT and plenty more.
Stream and download Africa In Your Earbuds #5: Just A Band below!
And check out our OKATV episode following Just A Band’s first New York visit.
AFRICA IN YOUR EARBUDS #5: JUST A BAND by okayafrica
TRACKLIST
1. Dela – “Ulivyo” (Kenya)
2. Vetkoek vs Mahoota – “Shukuma”
3. Psychedelic Nwomkro All-Stars (Kweku Ananse) – “Nwomkro Jam 2.0″
4. A Just A Band Mashup containing elements from of Little Dragon “Never Never (SBTRKT Remix)” and Yoko Kanno’s “Fantasie Sign” from the Cowboy Bebop OST.
5. DJ Cleo – “Katu Katu”
6. Just A Band – “Heat (Demo)”
7. Jali Bakary Konteh – “Combination (Hat and Hoodie Remix)”
8. Another Just A Band Mashup containing elements from Black Coffee + Hugh Masekela – “We Are One (Louie Vega Remix),” and a katitu song.
9. A snip-up of Hugh Masekela performing Fela Kuti’s “Lady”
10. Another snip-up of “Nanan” by Ali Farka Toure, Baaba Maal, Youssou N’Dour, Papa Wemba, Franco, Manu Dibango
11. A mild remix of Sam Fan Thomas’ “Neng Makassi”
12. A mashup of “Freedom Is Coming Tomorrow” from the Sarafina! film soundtrack and dialogue from Tolu Ogunmefun’s 7th episode of “Don’t Jealous Me” (“Pronounce My Name – Shett Men!”)
13. Sam Fan Thomas’ “Noa”
Previously on Africa In Your Earbuds: STIMULUS, QOOL DJ MARV, SINKANE, CHIEF BOIMA.
Just A Band made their (first ever) trip to New York in early September to exhibit their video-art project Kudishnyao! and play a few gigs around the way, including our very own OKAYSUMMER Pop-Up Party.
Commissioned by the Goethe Institute, Kudishnyao! is a video installation that depicts a single story on six, perspective-differing screens. Okayafrica TV posted-up at the exhibit’s opening night and watched as the crowd interacted with Just A Band’s stories of “fate, love, deceit, and escape.”
The art show proved to be an exciting juxtaposition of modern Kenyan music and the Western modern-art world, as the band explained: “we’ve been handed down a million definitions of what African music should sound like, what African art should be like… if you go anywhere, from South Africa to the top you’ll find different young people are… finding their own way and reinventing their African belief.”
Chief Nyamweya is an artist and writer based in Nairobi, Kenya. He is passionate about re-telling African stories through the contemporary power of art. He is also the founder of Emergency Webcomic, a comic based on the life and times of Kenyan National hero Dedan Kimathi that is set amidst the 1952 -1960 Mau Mau uprising in British East Africa. As part of Okayafrica’s brand new series, “An African Minute,” we asked Nyamweya 5 questions about what inspires him and how his work contributes to the changing global perception of Africa.
1. What is the “emergency” in “Emergency WebComic”? What is the idea behind this comic?
The “emergency” in the name of my first webcomic was a reference to the declaration of a State of Emergency in Kenya in 1952. I just wanted to tell a great story and, maybe, get young people interested in that little-understood period of our past. It wasn’t meant as an encyclopaedia, but it contained enough fact to provoke the reader to want to visit more authoritative sources. Just as Asterix did for Roman history….Unfortunately, Emergency may have been ahead of it’s time. In spite of it’s popularity, there weren’t any distributors who’d carry it, and I didn’t have the critical mass online to sustain it full-time. So I had to park it for the time being.
2. What do you find you most challenging about being an artist, and specifically being an artist in Kenya?
Firstly, it’s a challenge to find viable business models to make working as an artist sustainable, but not impossible. There are a lot of talented people out there who gave up trying and became accountants. I find this challenge exciting. Besides, I love what I do, so it’s a bonus to make a living from what I would do anyway for free.
Secondly, there’s not much of an established comic book industry in Kenya, so you find yourself make it up as you go along. Again, I find this to be a noble challenge.
3. How do you fund your creative projects?
There is soooooooooo much material all around us as Africans! The good thing about having our perspective ignored by the world for so long is that we’re the one part of the world which has no shortage of content. And I’m not talking about NGO sob stories. I mean love, romance, crime fiction, science fiction, all with an African flavour!
4.What do you think will change about the creative economy in Africa over the next five years?
It will become a lot more entrepreneurial. In Nairobi this is already happening. Young people coming out of school in Nairobi have a new-found arrogance (and I use “arrogance” in a positive sense) and are taking charge of their future. They aren’t willing to cow-tow to their inept predecessors, their government or employers. They are cheetahs. In five years, the energy around this generation would have made such a centre as Nairobi is very attractive to clients and distributors from around the world.
5.Lastly, your thoughts on changing the global perception of Africa?
I feel privileged to be growing up in these interesting times! We still have the negative stories out of Somalia, Ivory Coast etc, but for the first time, these stories are tempered by the verve of the Cheetah Generation. Asia responded early, but the world will catch up.
We also discovered other little unknowns about Chief Nyamweya. For instance, before he became Chief Nyamweya, “David” was on his birth certificate. He is independently self taught. He says that his country’s future, and his role in it, as well as his continent’s future and it’s new place in the world inspire him. When asked what he would be doing if he wasn’t an artist, he replied: “I’d probably go back to being the bored-to-death lawyer I was, and commit suicide after a year or so.”
For more on Chief Nyamweya visit his latest crime fiction comic “Roba.” We suggest you click the “enlarge” icon on the slide show below to get a better view of Nyamweya’s incredible work.
WUA In Kenya: The XYZ Puppets + Epic African Meal Time
Check out the latest installments of What’s Up Africa in Kenya. In episode 4 above, Ikenna talks to the creator of “The XYZ Show,” the successful satirical puppet show (you don’t want to miss the Mugabe puppet). Vegetarians beware, in episode 3 below Ikenna visits the Carnivore restaurant in Nairobi where you can gnaw on any meat under the sun.