Waaaaadup everyone !!! Welcome back to your favorite tunes on the airwaves, Continental Drift. Please join us today as we take you on a sonic expedition through the grand country of Kenya. This east African country is home to more than 54 million people, who make up at least 120 distinct ethnic categories, though Bantus and Cilotes make up the vast majority of residents (90%); Going clockwise, Kenya is bordered by South Sudan to the northwest, Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the east, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, Tanzania to the southwest, and Lake Victoria and Uganda to the west.
The music of Kenya is incredibly diverse, given the multplicity of ethnic groups and practice of over 50 regional languages. However, modern Kenyan music is likely best known for its unique guitar playing style, known as Benga that grew out of the Nyanza Province that borders Lake Victoria in western Kenya in the 1950s and 1960s, after soldiers returning from World War II introduced the Spanish guitar to the Luo people in the region. Characterized by fast rhythms and bouncy finger-picking on the guitar as on the nyatiti (lyre), benga is distinct from other African pop musical styles. Benga was also heavily influenced by the steady stream of Congolese rumba and finger-style guitar, South African kwela and various kinds of Cuban dance music played on the main Kenyan radio, the African Broadcasting Service, throughout the 1940s.
Songs:
Affline the pretty
Kodhek Onindo
Piny Ose Mer
Weka Weka
Pole Musa
Another notable style is Taarab, a music genre popular in Tanzania and Kenya, and the wider Swahilisphere. According to legend, Taarab (meaning "having pleasure, delight with music" in Arabic) was imported to the region in the late 19th century from Egypt by a regional sultan. The genre generally draws heavy influences from the African Great Lakes, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent.
After the spreading of taarab from the Sultan's palace to Zanzibari weddings and other community events, the first famous female singer of taarab was Siti bint Saad. She would become one of the most famous taarab musicians of all time.
Muhowo wa Jang’ombre
Muhogo wan jang ombe (same song!)
As you may have noticed already, there’s a lot of cross-cultural exchange between Kenya nad its neighbors as far as music is concerned. Nothing exemplifies this better than Soukous, the Congolese dance music that slowly made its way to Kenya in the 1970s. Most similar to a rumba, it uses a 12/8 time signature and has a signature bassline, inspired by hand-drum percussion patterns, why lays the genre's rhythmic foundation and is typically characterized by a 16th-note cadence. Simba Wanyika was a Kenyan-based band created in 1971 by Tanzanian brothers Wilson Kinyonga and George Kinyonga, and disbanded in 1994. It was one of the first soukous groups to sing in Swahili.
Dunia Kigeu Geu
Jiji (the band also moved to kenya from Zaire)
Ayub ogada was a Kenyan folk singer and adept at the nyatiti (the lyre which benga gets its signature style from) as his typical instrument.
Kothbiro
Malaika (one of the most famous swahili songs, first recorded by Fadhili williams and his jambo boys)