Obama For Change Video

Watch Kenge Kenge' video 'Obama For Change'. Click here to buy the song.

'Life-affirming…the kind of classic, joyous African dance sound…' Daily Telegraph

Kenyan Beats & Cowhorn Blues

Kenge Kenge symbolise all that is great about African traditional music; they are the guardians and masters of an ancient but living tradition. They breath new life into Kenya's Luo musical roots, continuing its evolution, from the hand-made instruments of the past, through the popular guitar-based benga, and now returning to both re-explore the acoustic origins of benga and embrace their Luo musical heritage.

Tour Dates 2010

17 July Concert of Colors, Ann Arbor, Detroit, MI
18 July  Evanston Ethnic Arts Festival, Evanston, Detroit, IL, USA
18 July  Space, Evanston, IL, USA
24-25 July Mission Folk Festival, Vancouver, BC, Canada
6 August Sebastopol Community Center, Sebastopol, CA, USA
13 August Lincoln Center Outdoors, New York, NY, USA
26 August Skirball Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA
28-29 August American Folk Festival, Bangor, ME, USA
1 September Rochester Public Library, Rochester, MN, USA
2 September Thursdays on First Avenue Stage, Rochester, MN, USA
25 September Globaquerque, Albuquerque, NM, USA

Kenge Kenge

'surprising and downright exuberant….the result is visceral, rough-edged but lovable music' Utne Reader

'The usual guitar riffs appear instead on fiddles and wind, and the opening invitation to dance sets a light-footed tone beneath its roaring vocal layers without compromising the headlong momentum' BBC Music Magazine

Introducing Kenge Kenge is an album of high-energy music and pulsing beat. The band work with traditional Luo instruments, from which the benga beat originally drew its sound, using the orutu (one-stringed fiddle) and the nyangile (gong), plus percussion, drums, horn and flute. Kenge Kenge bring together melodies and rhythms based on their traditional music and create songs on current topics in their own Luo language.

The band was founded in the early 1990s by the late Amdo Jawaya and Samuel Nyariwo and the name translates from Luo into ‘fusion of small, exhilarating instruments'. They started out as musicians for the Catering Levy Trust Choir but by the late 1990s had acquired new members, including their current leader, George Achieng, and began to create a more contemporary sound, focusing on the benga rhythm.