untested waters

Last Friday it was time to test the untested waters of music. The alliance francais was hosting makadem and the villagers. I always ignore music shows organized by AF and any other non Africans since i am normally afraid that the music they like would be metallic, cold or dry. and not poetic, soft and romantic like the Africans do it. but this time they said in the posters: The Ohanglaman! and poor me swallowed hook line and sinker!

contrary to my belief that 'white' people are time conscious, the show started an hour late and the first on stage was the feminine looking olith ratego. Olith sings sweet slow luo dodo. with very poetic and witty lyrics. but it wasn't his day and soon Marcus Kamau was called on stage. Kamau is more white than barak obama. his music as he said was African rock whatever that means. the most remarkable thing about kamau was his excitement. you could just love how much he enjoyed himself. and so onto makadem. Ok it was a trick. makadem plays no ohangla but boy! the energy! the electricity! the guy is a specialist in afro-fusion. he had some really funny and poetic lyrics. the energy was high and he gave a really good account of his being there that evening. He then handed over to odhi a new musician and also Zippy. Zippy was not very impressive to me apart from her gyrations. Most of her songs are actually luo folk songs which we used to sing when i was young. but she had great stage presence.

Makadem then closed his show with a hilarious and again electric song Kisumu bound bus. also hats off to his accompanying ladies who were dancing beside him though i kept on fearing their wrap around would fall down given the gyrations of their hips

Hear some of Makadem's music here