Vipi Africa: Using Music to Conserve Mountain Gorillas

Vipi Africa: Using Music to Conserve Mountain Gorillas

Voice of America's documentary filmmaker Paul Ndiho interviews Samba about his new song "Les Gorilles des Montagnes" recorded in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund to raise awareness of their mission to protect the endangered Mountain Gorillas of Virunga National Park in Congo. The song is available as a free download at http://drop.io/GorillaSong, or http://myspace.com/SambaMapangala
 

Samba Mapangala at Kennedy Center, Washington DC

Video of the June 20 concert for UNHCR World Refugee Day can be accessed here (scroll down): http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium/artist_detail.cfm?artist_id=VIRUNGAVIR

Samba Mapangala's African rumba for free Saturday evening

Shared via AddThis

And now a word from our sponsor

For more information about Samba Mapangala, check the following links:
www.myspace.com/sambamapangala
http://cdbaby.com/cd/mapangala

For more photos from the tour, visit the essential African music discussion board, AfricAmbiance.org

Last dance in Nairobi

The main event was called "Benga Blast 2009" and featured an afternoon of performances at the Nyayo soccer stadium by a selection of the Kenyan bands that are reviving the benga style that we in the West began hearing back in the early days of the African music boom in the '80s -- D.O. Misiani and Shirati Jazz for example. It has a rootsy "countrified" sound to my ears, without the gloss of soukous (what they call lingala music or rumba in Kenya), sung in Luo or Kikuyu, and if producers like Tabu Osusa keep up the good work it could be the next big thing in the world music world. Samba was warmly welcomed as befit his legendary status and long popularity in Kenya, and ran through a selection of his best-loved hits for the crowd. Here are some links to local press coverage of the festival: here and again from Daily Nation,
On Monday we bid farewell to Nairobi and set forth before dawn on our first leg of the journey home.

Nairobi night

All of a sudden our time in Kenya is drawing to an end. We are still hectically racing (or crawling through gridlock) to radio interviews, a tv taping for "Churchill Live" (a widely watched talk/comedy show a la Oprah) at the famous Carnivore Restaurant, and band rehearsals. On Friday, Feb. 27 Virunga performs at Club Afrique, with the core tour band augmented by Pepe Ibrahim, ex Virunga singer and now leader of his own band called Ngoma Afrika, and a guest appearance by Bikassy, who led the group Saka Saka in which Samba began his migration out of Zaire and into East Africa in the '70s. The show was a lot of fun. They played for hours, and did all the great Virunga hits. (I was dancing so hard to my favorite song, "Malako" that I hurt my leg and had to stop!)
Photos: Komba Bellow in the dressing room, dancers Mami Watah and Carolyne, and on stage from left: Bikassy, Teddy, Pepe Ibrahim, Syran and Samba.

Marafiki (more friends)

Making this trip even more fun was the presence of three long-time acquaintances and African music aficionados: Douglas Paterson (Seattle), Peter Toll (Netherlands) and Jean Suren (Nairobi by way of Los Angeles). Doug is an acknowledged expert in East African music, a record collector, broadcaster, audio engineer.... well, see for yourself on his Web site: East African Music.com. Peter, also a dedicated record collector and music scholar, was manager and producer for Simba Wanyika and also an old Africa-hand, who had lived in LA for a time. Incredibly, they had never met, and I was so pleased that they were able to finally get together in Nairobi after their many years of toiling in the same field. My dear friend Jean was a fixture in LA's African music scene during the good old days of the '80s, specializing in the care and feeding of African musicians and always the first on the dance floor at live shows, resplendent in African attire. She moved to Nairobi in 1991, continued to be in touch with the music scene, and is well-established and highly regarded in her career as a diabetes care and training specialist. How marvelous it was to reconnect with all of you!

More friends, fans and colleagues

We would never have made it through this tour without Bofta, Virunga's indispensable band manager. We enjoyed a good time visiting his home for the first birthday of his youngest daughter, Chantal, and tasted the finest Kenyan food of our trip. A big asante sana to Bofta, his wife Jan, and their beautiful daughters!