Pick of the Week - Johnston Mukabi & Friends (Kenya)

From 2022, a half-hour recording of a livestream by Mukabi and a few friends.

A while back I featured Usiende Ukalale: Omutibo From Rural Kenya, an album of Kenyan music recorded in 2016. As noted there, omutibo is "a uniquely Kenyan style of acoustic guitar music, was invented by George Mukabi in the late 1950s, and quickly adapted by his neighbors in a region that proved truly fertile for guitarists."

For more of the same, be sure not to miss the livestream posted here. It was recorded in 2022 and features Johnstone Ouko Mukabi and a few friends playing a relaxed set. Johnstone is the son of the aforementioned George Mukabi, who came to an unfortunate end. Here are the notes from the video post:

Johnstone Ouko Mukabi was born in 1956 to the legendary guitarist George Mukabi and his first wife Joyce Adero in Emulunya village in Kakamega County. He was from a polygamous family with his sister Emily Sikobe being his immediate follower while his brother Abil Aseta was from a different household. Abil’s mother, Jennifer Osimbo also known as Sengula, was the second wife to the senior Mukabi and was the woman immortalized by the legendary king of omutibo in the song of the same name.

It is reported that it was Jennifer (Sengula) who was the cause to the death of George Mukabi when the musician was hacked to death when he followed her to her parents’ village in Butsotso in Kakamega County after a domestic row.

Having lost his father at an early age, Johnstone taught himself how to play the guitar and by 1978 he had mastered the ‘finger picking’ style technique of playing the guitar which his late father had helped in developing. Overtime he has become incomparable to anyone when it comes to interpreting his father’s songs. He is married to Leah Mbone and the couple have eight children and reside in Eldoret town.