Planting the Seed: Ayub Ogada and Trevor Warren with "Kodhi"

A duet by Ayub Ogada and Trevor Warren is our random tune of the day. Ayub Ogada is a Kenyan singer from the Luo tribe who plays a variety of instruments in both traditional and modern Kenyan styles. After moving to London in 1986 and busking for two years, he was asked to play at Peter Gabriel's WOMAD festival where he got his big break when his original 10 minute slot was extended to a full set after the preceding band canceled and he won over Peter Gabriel himself. He recorded his first album for Real World Records in 1993, and toured extensively with Gabriel and WOMAD. Trevor Warren is an English musician who traveled to Kenya at the invitation of Ogada and while there recorded enough material of the two of them playing and singing together to create an album. The result was 2015's Kodhi ("seed" in Luo), and this song is the title track.

Night Life: Owiny Sigoma Band and "Lucas Malore"

I've never been much of a party and nightlife kind of person, so any songs about my nocturnal adventures would be pretty boring. It would recount my adventures in cooking dinner, sitting at my computer, watching TV, maybe reading a chapter of a book or working some on a crossword puzzle, and then going to bed. I can't remember the last time I had an "epic" night that could be put to verse on the level of a Homerian epic. Well, maybe I can. In college I had a couple of epic nights that it would be best not to recount, and some years ago I enjoyed a most-of-the-evening romp through San Francisco with my good friend and then resident-of-the-city Rich. We went to a party, and then due to lack of transportation we walked most of the way back through the city to his apartment.

One thing I've noticed is that a city at night has a distinctly different feel than a city in the daylight. Of course the light and shadows plays a part in this difference, but so does the the ambiance of the city. The people out are different, with different agendas and goals (some of which aren't always on the up and up). The night makes some people more bold, some people more timid. You see people revel in the night, and you see people absolutely shrink from it, scurrying to get to the safety of their doorways. There's a sense of danger in the night, but also a world in the shadows waiting to be explored. And that's what we did that night. We explored the shadows, whether it was walking (trespassing really) through the grounds of the Presidio or wandering through the nightlife of the Castro District trying not to be too conspicuous in our heterosexuality. It was a fantastic night, and perhaps the epic night in my life that I could write a song about.

Today's artists, the Owiny Sigoma Band, use their song Lucas Malore to celebrate their own epic night. The song tells the story of a night that lead singer Joseph Nyamungu's spent out in London. The Owiny Sigoma Band is made up of musicians from Kenya and Britain. Their first album was based on traditional Luo folk songs from Kenya put to a more modern beat. They expanded their repertoire on their second album, Power Punch (2013), on which you'll find Lucas Malore. On Power Punch they introduced electronica and techno. One interesting fact about their music is that they highlight an instrument called the nyatiti, an 8 string lyre played with a violin-like bow. Lucas Malore is actually quite a simple tune - it starts out with an uptempo percussion beat with a plucked instrument like a guitar or some kind of stringed instrument, and then adds bass and more percussion in a rhythm that repeats itself, while Nyamungo provides powerful vocals over it all.