Tabu Osusa | |
|---|---|
 Tabu Osusa in Nairobi, April 2018 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Tabu Osusa |
| Born | 21 July 1954 Mirogi, Nyanza Province, Kenya |
| Genres | Funk, Benga music, African Music |
| Occupation(s) | Record producer |
| Years active | 1974–present |
| Labels | Ketebul Music |
| Website | www |
Tabu Osusa (born 21 July 1954) is a Kenyan author and music producer, and the founder of Ketebul Music. [1] [2]
In 1974 Osusa decided to travel the DRC then Zaire, settling in Barumbu Kinshasa where he was first introduced to music by the Kenyan saxophonist Ben Nicholas. Osusa returned to Kenya in 1977 and briefly joined the band Les Kinois. Since then, Osusa has been a composer, recording artist, songwriter, promoter, band manager and producer.
In 2007, Tabu Osusa founded Ketebul Music. He is the acting director of the organisation, assisted by some people with varied knowledge and skills in the wider field of arts and culture. The chairman of Ketebul Music is the kenyan cartoonist Maddo.
In 2014, Tabu Osusa with Ketebul Music was appointed by the Smithsonian Folkways to select artists and co-produce the albums African Rhythms: Songs from Kenya [3]
Tabu Osusa was the lead author of Shades of Benga: The Story of Popular Music In Kenya 1946-2016. The book published in August 2017 traces the origins of Kenya's popular music to the end of the Second World War to date. [4] [5]
In 2016 he was nominated Five Music Rights Champion by the International Music Council [6]
Walter Brown "Brownie" McGhee was an American folk music and Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.
The music of Kenya is very diverse, with multiple types of folk music based on the variety over 50 regional languages.
Soukous is a genre of dance music from Congo-Kinshasa and Congo-Brazzaville. It derived from Congolese rumba in the 1960s, becoming known for its fast dance rhythms and intricate guitar improvisation, and gained popularity in the 1980s in France. Although often used by journalists as a synonym for Congolese rumba, both the music and dance associated with soukous differ from more traditional rumba, especially in its higher tempo and longer dance sequences. Notable performers of the genre include Franco Luambo and his band TPOK Jazz, Papa Wemba, Sam Mangwana, Tabu Ley Rochereau, and Pépé Kallé.
Anthology of American Folk Music is a three-album compilation, released in 1952 by Folkways Records, of eighty-four recordings of American folk, blues and country music made and issued from 1926 to 1933 by a variety of performers. The album was compiled from experimental film maker Harry Smith's own personal collection of 78 rpm records.
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Benga is a genre of Kenyan popular music. It evolved between the late 1940s and late 1960s, in Kenya's capital city of Nairobi. In the 1940s, the African Broadcasting Service in Nairobi aired a steady stream of soukous, South African kwela, Congolese finger-style guitar and various kinds of Cuban dance music that heavily influenced emergence of benga. There were also popular folk songs of Tanzania and Kenya's Luo peoples that formed the base on benga creation.
John Cohen was an American musician, photographer and film maker who performed and documented the traditional music of the rural South and played a major role in the American folk music revival. In the 1950s and 60s, Cohen was a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers, a New York-based string band. Cohen made several expeditions to Peru to film and record the traditional culture of the Q'ero, an indigenous people. Cohen was also a professor of visual arts at SUNY Purchase College for 25 years.
Congolese rumba is a popular genre of dance music that originated in the Congo basin during the 1940s, deriving from Cuban son. The style gained popularity throughout Africa during the 1960s and 1970s.
Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Records, donated the entire Folkways Records label to the Smithsonian. The donation was made on the condition that the Institution continue Asch's policy that each of the more than 2,000 albums of Folkways Records remain in print forever, regardless of sales. Since then, the label has expanded on Asch's vision of documenting the sounds of the world, adding six other record labels to the collection, as well as releasing over 300 new recordings. Some well-known artists have contributed to the Smithsonian Folkways collection, including Pete Seeger, Ella Jenkins, Woody Guthrie, and Lead Belly. Famous songs include "This Land Is Your Land", "Goodnight, Irene", and "Midnight Special". Due to the unique nature of its recordings, which include an extensive collection of traditional American music, children's music, and international music, Smithsonian Folkways has become an important collection to the musical community, especially to ethnomusicologists, who utilize the recordings of "people's music" from all over the world.
Elizabeth Ardis Mitchell is an American singer, songwriter and musician. She began her career performing with Lisa Loeb as the duo Liz and Lisa, then founded the indie rock band Ida in 1991, of which she continues to be a member. As a solo artist, she has been recording and performing music for children since 1998.
Verna Gillis is an American freelance record producer, who has gained recognition for her work promoting and producing music from various cultural backgrounds. Gillis holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology. She was an assistant professor at Brooklyn College from 1974 to 1980 and at Carnegie Mellon University from 1988 to 1990.
Quetzal is a bilingual (Spanish-English) Chicano rock band from East Los Angeles, California.
Richard James Burgess is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, composer, author, manager, marketer and inventor.
Mose Se Sengo was a guitarist, composer and band-leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He was one of the pioneers of Congolese Soukous.
Moses Asch was an American recording engineer and record executive. He founded Asch Records, which then changed its name to Folkways Records when the label transitioned from 78 RPM recordings to LP records. Asch ran the Folkways label from 1948 until his death in 1986. Folkways was very influential in bringing folk music into the American cultural mainstream. Some of America's greatest folk songs were originally recorded for Asch, including "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie and "Goodnight Irene" by Lead Belly. Asch sold many commercial recordings to Verve Records; after his death, Asch's archive of ethnic recordings was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution, and released as Smithsonian Folkways Records.
Cimarrón is a Colombian musical group of festive dance music joropo from the plains of the Orinoco River. This Grammy nominated band makes latin music with its Andalusian, Indigenous American native and African roots. Their music includes four-stringed cuatro, harp, maracas, and also peruvian-flamenco cajón, brazilian surdo, afro-colombian tambora, a stomp dance as a percussion component and tribal indigenous whistles.
Jeff Place is the Grammy-award-winning Archivist and Curator at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. He and Anthony Seeger were the first two full-time employees hired in 1987 when the Smithsonian acquired Folkways Records from the estate of Folkways founder Moses Asch.
Paul Kelemba, is a Kenyan self-taught comic strip artist and caricaturist. He uses Maddo as a pen-name which was inspired by Mad Magazine of New-York.
Nashil Pichen Kazembe (1932–1991) was a Zambian singer from Kaputa District in the Luapula Valley, who gained prominence in the 1970s. He spent a large part of his life in Nairobi, Kenya, where he collaborated with fellow Zambia emigre Peter Tsotsi and Benson Simbeye. As members of Eagles Lupopo Band they sang 'patriotic songs' praising President Kenneth Kaunda and commenting on various social issues.
Richard Carlin is the author of several books on folk, country, and traditional music.
