Various - Kambanane: Nyatiti music from Kenya 1970 - 1985 LP

During the 1970s, nyatiti music moved from its traditional home in the countryside into urban Nairobi, and its exciting sounds experienced an unexpected resurgence during Kenya’s vinyl boom. We have compiled some of the best of the best of nyatiti music singles from the period into a special and unique collection. These sounds are being made available for the first time ever outside of Kenya.

Nyatiti music’s infectious and hypnotic sounds are unforgettable. The driving beat of the nyatiti rings of far off styles of Western dance and techno music. Nyatiti players show up at weddings, funerals and drinking halls and sing songs in tribute. They would regularly appear in bars in Nairobi’s City Centre during the 1970s, when people had moved to the city en masse from the countryside and were hungry to the familiar and exciting sounds of the nyatiti. Players would sing racy tunes, filled with double entendres, describing well known scenes from the villages about sexual prowess, cheating partners, political tributes, cautionary tales and dangerous deals where the Devil gets his comeuppance. Nyatiti music can still be heard to this day all over Kenya, but these recordings represent the unique sound of the first half of the 20th century, and the last visages of the sounds that existed for millennia previous before the music would change to adapt to a changing world. Couple that with the nyatiti’s infectious rhythms and it is easy to see why so many people turned out to see these guys play.

The record features some of the best known nyatiti players in history, from Lucas Odote, a suited public servant working in Kenya’s independence government, to Ogwang Lelo, whose raspy voice is unforgettable to Amolo Kongo, one of nyatiti’s greatest performers and an early casualty in the AIDS crisis the decimated Kenya’s music scene. These recordings and the subsequent remastering process capture and bring new life to the rhythmic and trance like sound of the instrument. We are extremely proud to be able to present this first collection of exclusively nyatiti recordings to the public.