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PUBLISHER & EDITORIAL DESIGNER Boaz Adhengo

MANAGING EDITORAL ASSISTANT Amanda Spielberg

MARKETING EXECUTIVE Lydia Jane Atieno

County Coordinating Marshalls

Sylvia Opondo; Marion Bundotich; John Ogola; Dorothy Olambo; Kelly Osuo; Ambrose Otieno; Risper Auma; Monicah Anyango; Linda Nyambara; Charles Otieno; Lydia Jane Andiwo

Siaya County Arts Network P.O. Box 524 – 40601 Bondo

[email protected]

Table of Contents a. Editorial ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Boaz Adhengo 1. b. How Do You Define an Artist ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….David Grant 4 c. Retracing The Benga Rythm ……………………………………………………………………………………….Mousa Awuonda & Ketabul Music 7 d. What is An Artist …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Laurance Olivier 15 e. Book Review: Dust by Yvonne A. Owuor ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….AKoyo Beverly Ochieng 17 f. A Tale Of Grace Ogot ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Peter Ngangi 20

September, 2015

E D I T O R I A L

The Quantified Artist

Boaz Adhengo

Mr. Boaz Adhengo is Vice President for Special Projects at Jahwar Amber Fund and founding steer member of Arterial Network Kenya. He is popular for his book “Creativity in Kenya” Pronacal Press/Amazon, 2010. Adhengo resides in his heritage home at Kapiyo hills in Bondo. Email: :[email protected]

Welcome to the journalistic edition of our future magazine. SCAN will now emerge as a documentalist portfolio, to debate not only issues of art, but give guidance for culture through the collective information gathered that would rather warrant the readers own decision upon such principalities involved. It has been noted in many a times that the connotations of art, an artist and artistic has always rose eyebrows where those who claim to be professionals feel abused or invaded. To create a glimpse of such understandings is what drives the cause of this edition, dubbed ‗The Artist‘ and will be noted through its pages that a world approach to such views have been involved. Am I an artist because I write? Does the capability of having dreams qualify me a creative?

Many of those who have emerged to deliver as celebrities often fail to understand the value addition chain for creative growth; misconceive the factual know that becoming an artist involves various attempts to perfect on the discovered talents within our own selves; the creative nostalgias that we shy away from sharing. The artist is simply that bold creative who has the courage to overtly display his expression.

In 2011, my own personal journey into the rural began from a network of ranchers who encouraged city dwellers to glimpse a taste of the country side. Of all places, I chose the Maasai community, with understanding that their marginalization made them a safe zone against all vices. Little did I know that I was marginalizing myself by living as a minority within a marginalized community, they mistook me as the agent of aid, a person who brought hope. My creativity amused them, but their culture was different from my understanding of development. Female circumcision and traditional marriages were customary, to be practiced as activities that brought community cohesion. I thought they were just stupid and ignorant. And my dissociation earned me a violent eviction from Maasai community, yet I was a land owner. To them, I never owned anything other than some documents, that such a land belonged to the community and I was their visitor, now am chased.

In this story, we entrench the cultural cohesion, the marginalization of collective selves against those who are considered progressive; hence, the habitual persistence to cling on cultural practices that basically promote unity as opposed to economic gain.

What would then be the correct definition of an artist? Would it need to be pillared on culture?

Everyone is rightly an artist but not everyone is professionally artistic; to which case, practicing professionals have independent self definitions i.e. performing artist or visual artist depending on what they comprehensively involve their occupation upon. For example, while growing up, I had the luxury of enjoying computers, an equipment that was expensive and rare during my childhood days; I had

Siaya County Arts Network 1 not enough friends who shared in this societal class and would rather stay indoors and keep silence of owning such a machine, for beyond the gated community we resided, there were people considered not good for livelihood. I learnt of computer graphics and typing from consistent use of; developing a talent on designs and animations. At the university, I studied political science and graduated as such with masters in conflict management; but oftenly find myself indulging on issues of artistic management and general development of the artist. Such interest on art made me a pioneer author on artistic activism for Kenya.

The segmentation and dissociation of our mentalities towards emerging as unique components of art, either as the best agents of representation or otherwise; all depends on association. And it was saddening when some art manager asked me what makes me an artist; I could as well answered my culture, or just the professional truth, my publishing.

When we ask ―who is an artist‖, we are, as researchers, concerned with the artist as a member of a professional group. When we ask ―what is an artist‖ we are dealing with more existential or ontological problems: what are the inherent characteristics of artistic work and artist themselves. In giving such answers, the categories of definitions emerge, which envisage aesthetic meanings; thus, the need to find out what an artist is, is to reveal some special quality, capacity or gift which makes a person a true artist, a creative genius. This quality or capacity is usually linked to the artists ability – and his or her predicament – to see and interpret or reinterpret the world in a new manner.

We can therefore not answer the question ‗who is an artist‘ without making the value judgment ‗what is an artist because both ways of defining an artist have a joint social function; they serve to integrate and demystify or isolate and mystify artists‘ communities from the rest of the society.

The relations and interactions between these dimensions and the definitions they generate can be clarified with the following typology and its model questions:

Definitions based upon practical considerations

I II What are the good criteria to be used What does the artist do; how does he to define a (good) professional; relate to his work? rewarding and rejecting them/their Definitions base works Definitions based on external on internal criteria III IV How does the work of art reflect/define What is art; what is an artist; what is criteria the artist; and what kind of artist? his task or predicament?

Definitions based on moral

considerations

Siaya County Arts Network 2 Whether art originates from the communal way of life and its moral inclinations is still an issue of self perception. Were my morning photography sessions of value to the Maa community? Would they see me as an entity on its own? Would I reject their cultural immoralities on basis of art?

The Maasai who had nurtured their art of life were equally unwelcoming, not only to my taste of living but to my difference. I am not circumcised and therefore, my art of sex would be different; I don‘t speak Maa and therefore my art of expression would be different. I was different to them, not appreciated.

We must note that in many attempts to dissociate art from culture, there is usually a distress against harmony, such value that makes an expression gain its meaning towards a consumer.

For instance, Benga Music that is a making of the luo speaking community has gained to be appreciated and replicated to other tribal zones, yet it retains its originality. You will notice from reading the article by Mousa Awuonda of Ketabul Music that art and culture cannot be isolated, for they contribute greatly to the formation of a peoples heritage; yet, the Maasai heritage in as much as it disgusted my gut, was simply their artistic ticket to life; where they mutilated their girls and walked half naked with preferences inclined to them remaining marginalized. All in all, that is their choosing and the artist must always look for its sustainability.

In this edition of SCAN Magazine, we have included elaborated definitions about the artist and its generic expressions. For instance, David Grant discusses the array of understandings that we could possibly have on ‗who is an artist‘ and ‗what is an artist‘ but elaborates in relation to such livelihoods related; while Lawrence Olivier engages on ‗what is an artist‘. Rural art is simply a process to document whatever histories that have ever transformed our development agendas. It might as well involve political activism, but most nobly expressed creatively through visual arts or narrated stories (either written or performed). The necessity to preserve rural art is what brings activities like festivals into play, which could grow to be representations of history or avenues of urbanism.

Of what necessity is your artistic practice? What makes your creativity different from mine? Perhaps these are questions we need to take deep analysis of in our next editions.

SCAN Magazine has branded its agenda as an agent for ―Creativity and Crafts‖ which makes us not a confine of arts in Siaya county, but a concern for the national and international artistic development. Although the arts within Siaya will influence the editorial directive, the incumbent stories and articles will reflect the general concerns of Kenyan art within the global system, and will feature to include articles from friends in other continents as well, who have supported and still share in our agenda of rural art.

Advertise with SCAN Magazine! Get this space, now! $25 For those artists who would like to share their stories, contact the editorial via email: [email protected]

Siaya County Arts Network 3 How do you define an artist?

David Grant

The question of what is art has long occupied theorists and philosophers, but the issue of who or what is an artist is no less vexing. The topic arises for studio or residential space set aside exclusively for artists or when artists are counted in a census or required to pay income taxes. Then, there are surveys done by economic, social and cultural researches (artists' employment, artists' health care coverage and needs, the economic benefits of creative communities, and other related enquiries) that create a methodological problem for those looking for information. As opposed to other occupations that require a license, permits, state testing or even reported income, the label artist seems more like a value judgment, which is why employees of tattoo parlor (tattoo artists), comedians and exotic dancers (performance artists), chefs (culinary artists) and graffiti artists have all claimed the mantle at one time or another.

An artist is someone who makes art.

Societies of artists have perhaps the loosest definitions, admitting new members on the basis of the quality of an individual's work or, in some cases, simply paying annual dues. According to the bylaws of the National Watercolor Society, "Associate Membership is open to anyone," and the same is true at the American Watercolor Society, as well as the Florida Watercolor Society and the Garden State Watercolor Society, with the only exception that those last two groups require members to be state residents. There are generally two levels of membership - associate and signature, the latter requiring juried selection of an individual's work into one or more of the group's shows and would more clearly identify that person as an accomplished artist - but the hierarchical distinctions between the two designations (the signature member has the right to vote at board meetings and may use of a society's initial letters after his or her name) appear to matter more to other artists in the same realm than to anyone else, such as collectors, gallery owners, critics, curators, researchers, the government. There is no requirement in any of these groups that the creator of the art be a full-time artist or even have any professional aspirations. Missie Dickens, for instance, a past president of Watercolor USA Honor Society, earns her living as a registered nurse, painting in her spare time.

An artist is on the job.

The federal government identifies artists as professionals in two separate ways. The Bureau of the Census (whose date is used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Endowment for the Arts and other agencies) makes a broad national survey every 10 years, inquiring among other things about sources of paid employment during the census week. People with more than one source of income are counted occupationally in the job at which they worked the greatest number of hours during the census reference week. Because the focus is on paid employment, rather than the amount of time spent in the studio or a desire to sell art, many artists are likely to be overlooked - that is, not counted as artists. On an individual basis, this doesn't matter - census information is kept confidential, and no dealers will throw artists out of their galleries, because the Census Bureau didn't classify them as artists - but there is a national policy downside. Municipal, state and federal legislators are less likely to appropriate money to the arts or to create laws that benefit artists is this group is significantly undercounted.

Artists exhibit art.

Although the federal agency makes use of Census Bureau data, the National Endowment for the Arts has conducted its own surveys of artists in various visual and performing over the years. In the fine arts realm, its 1984 "Visual Artists in Four Cities" (Houston, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.) study identified artists by their level of activity, counting those who had exhibited in some gallery or other art space in those cities during the course of several years.

An artist turns a profit on his or her art.

If the Census Bureau takes a sweeping view, the Internal Revenue Service takes a narrow one, examining individual taxpayers' returns, and the federal agencies has its own definition of artist as a professional. There are nine criteria that the IRS applies in order to separate professionals from hobbyists (professionals may deduct their expenses, hobbyists may not):

Siaya County Arts Network 4 Is the activity carried on in a businesslike manner? Does the artist intend to make the artistic activity profitable? Does the individual depend in pull or in part from income generated by the artistic work? Are business losses to be expected, or are they due to circumstances beyond the artist's control? Are business plans changed to improve profitability? Does the artist have the knowledge to make the activity profitable? Has the artist been successful in previous professional activities? Does the activity generate a profit in some years and, if so, how much of one? Will the artist make a profit in the future?

The artist need not answer "yes" to every question in order to legitimately deduct business-related expenses - including art supplies and equipment, studio rental, travel (mileage, airfare, parking, tolls, meals and lodging), educational expenses (conferences, master classes, museum membership) and the cost of advertising and promotion (business cards, brochures, photography, postage and shipping) - but the IRS demands proof that an artist make a genuine effort to earn a profit in three years out of a five-year span. Artistic credentials, which don't usually matter to collectors, critics, dealers and curators, may help an artist make a case that he or she is a professional for tax purposes. These include earning a bachelor's or Master's degree in fine arts, membership in an artists' society, the experience of teaching art, inclusion in Who's Who in American Art or some similar directory and an exhibition history.

An artist is someone who requires an artist's studio.

A variety of private and public agencies certify artists' eligibility to rent or buy live-work loft space apartments that have both residential and studio components. Artist Certification committees have been set up to evaluate applicants' need for space and their qualifications as serious, rather than professional, artists. According to artist certification guidelines of the Boston Redevelopment Authority in Massachusetts, "Any artist who can demonstrate to a committee of peers that they have a recent body of work as an artist, and who requires loft-style space to support that work, is eligible." The definition that these committees use is quite flexible, focusing on subjective factors ("...the nature of the commitment of the artist to his or her art form as his or her primary vocation rather than the amount of financial remuneration earned from his or her creative endeavor," in the words of the Artist Certification Committee of New York City's Department of Cultural Affairs) rather than a set of hard numbers (exhibitions, sales, awards, memberships, commissions), which would tend to disqualify most applicants. There is no written definition of artist at Artspace, the Minnesota-based developer of live-work spaces for artists around the country, and ad hoc certification committees at various sites look at applicants' work ("they're not making qualitative judgments, though," said Artspace spokeswoman Sarah Parker) and attempt to gauge the individual's reputation within the arts community.

An artist is someone whom funding agencies call an artist.

Public agencies and private organizations also provide money for individual artists, but normally posts a definition of who an artist is. "We put this into the hands of our panel members," said Julie Gordon Dalgleish, program director for artist fellowships at the St. Paul, Minnesota-based Bush Foundation, which provides money for artists residing in Minnesota, North and South Dakota and certain counties in northwestern Wisconsin. "We exclude certain things," such as straight journalism from the literature category or instructional videos from the category of film and video, but "we accepted an application from someone who braids hair. We would look at a tattoo artist, if we felt there were a strong vision, creative energy and perseverance." By we, she meant the panels that review artists' applications for fellowships and decide who receives money. Panel members regularly debate the questions of whether or not a craft artist is an artist, but that topic has a decades-long history. More recent concerns involve new media, digital art that cross categories of two-dimensions and three-dimensions. Similar to the certification committees, panelists examine artwork for its seriousness of commitment, but their primary goal is to determine what the artist wants money to do and if the artist has the experience to carry out his or her goals. The relevant credentials this time may be if the artist has completed a similar project in the past, received awards from other grant giving organizations and has established some sort of artistic reputation.

Siaya County Arts Network 5 Artists are people who call themselves artists.

According to Marcel Duchamp, the artist defines art, and it seems increasingly true that nowadays artists also define who and what they are. Definitions by nature are confining and restrictive, while art and its makers seek to be expansive and inclusive: It may be simpler to state what makes an artist a professional than what defines an artist. Artist has become a universal statement of creativity or, in the case of a culinary artist, someone who does something well. Socially, artists are often defined by the positive (freedom-loving, convention-defying) or negative (egotistical, bohemian) characteristics that other people attribute to them. Part of an artist's job is to understand how artists are seen and what is expected of them, whether that be a certification committee that wants to see the art, a funding source that wants to read an artist's proposal or the government that wants to see receipts.

Siaya County Arts Network 6

Retracing the Benga Rhythm

Moussa Awounda and Ketabul Music

A characteristic of popular music the world over is the element of mystery surrounding the origins of the genre and sometimes also, the real meaning of its name. Great icons of jazz, blues, R‘n‘B, reggae, rumba and even the much revered Western country music are famous for performing in their respective genres rather than expounding on meanings and origins. Rarely does one find consensus among fans, let alone among musicologists when it comes to interpreting the history, art and emotive power of a particular music. Still, the imperative of building an archive of a people‘s past—including their popular histories—compelled us to search and ask, to travel far and build connections, to collate documents and present available evidence relating to the roots of popular Kenyan music.

Many historians and musicologists agree that the cradle of the Benga genre of Kenya popular music is Nyanza province in western Kenya. This region is home to the fishing community of Luo-speaking people, many of whom live around Lake Victoria—known locally as Nyanza. Lake Victoria straddles the three East African countries—Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania—covering an area of over 68,000 square kilometers. The Luo who live around its shores in Kenya speak a western Nilotic tongue distinctly different from their Bantu neighbours to the north and south, and their Kalenjin distant cousins to the east. The Luo comprise close to 3 million people. Their forefathers migrated south from the Bahr al Ghazal region in what is today know as Southern Sudan in a steady stream until the 19th Century. Some live in neighbouring Uganda and Tanzania.

Today, Benga music is played across a fair share of Kenya—from the lake shores in the west, across the vast floor of the Rift Valley to the slopes of the imposing 5,199 metre Mount Kenya and into the plains of eastern Kenya. From a genre that was previously considered low class, it has managed to establish its hold as a definite Kenyan style and beat. Sprinklings of it are to be found in DR Congo. It has been borrowed, repackaged and found a new form in Zimbabwe. From its humble rural beginnings, this music has been nurtured into a club circuit affair in numerous urban areas in East, Central and Southern Africa.

What, exactly, is Benga Music?

Benga‘s most distinctive feature is its fast-paced rhythmic beat and bouncy finger-picking guitar technique. Indeed, the core of benga is the lead guitar, which essentially follows the track of the vocals. Without exception, the singing is at some point separated from the climax—the instrumental expanse that combines three or four guitars and percussions. Benga is loosely linked to Congolese rumba and West African highlife, but differs sharply from South African kwela, taarab, chakacha and kidumbaak; the most well-known Swahili music forms from the coastal strip of East Africa.

The peculiarity of the Benga beat comes from the combination of a sharp lead guitar overriding the rhythm and bass. The pace of the guitars, with a steady rise to a climax or crescendo and an equally quick refrain, together with the arrangement and sectioning mark benga apart from other music. Luo guitarists long cultivated a unique technique of playing the guitar. They commonly do not massage the strings as their Congolese counterparts do but rather they pluck and pick single notes rapidly in a fashion akin to playing a nyatiti—the traditional lyre of the Luo people.

Benga is undoubtedly dance music because of its fast tempo. Dancers commonly do not hold hands or embrace as is the case with other music, for instance Congolese rumba. Benga fans will be seen dancing alone or forming a group, but not holding hands. Often the dancers break off from the circle of their partners and slink away, doing their own thing, sometimes becoming theatrical in their movements—flexing their muscles, feet and shaking their heads. They dance with freedom and even total abandon. Attentive Benga audiences point out the importance of its themes especially where a song chronicles or even instigates an important social event or political drama. Many lyrics dwell on love, either extolling a woman‘s beauty and praising her virtues or expressing the disappointment of an ardent

Siaya County Arts Network 7 suitor. Some songs sing about money and personal experiences of hardship and struggle. Occasionally, the lyrics are in praise of a person of high standing in the society. Those in political leadership are frequently the subject of such praise, even though occasionally they are the subject of biting censure. Modern Benga vocals sections are long and the story winding and repetitive, with some of the more accomplished songwriters employing clever allegory, generating witty memorable phrases or coining new idioms.

Tradition— Adaptations and Innovations

The traditional Benga sound is about 60 years old with its formative years occurring between the late 1950s and the 1960s. Its roots run deep in age-old Luo musical instruments. Of the many traditional instruments that the Luo played, the most enduring and widely used is the nyatiti, an eight- stringed traditional lyre.

In elaborate traditional Luo ceremonies, the nyatiti was accompanied by a set of traditional drums, cow horns, gourds, sticks, shakers and other improvised instrumentation such as whistling, feet-stamping, and clapping or a melody created from someone blowing through the hollowed chamber of clasped hands. Sometimes the single-stringed orutu, from the viol family, would also be used. This combination of musical instruments and vocal accompaniment provided entertainment for a range of ceremonies long before the first European explorers and missionaries appeared on the scene.

The winding mournful sound of the orutu, which was easily imitated by the modern Benga lead guitar upon which the music rides, is considered by many as the single most crucial link between that instrument and modern benga. The tempo of the nyatiti playing along with the sound produced from the rhythmic thumping of an iron ring harnessed to the toe of the lyre player is the rhythm and percussion respectively in modern Benga. The nyatiti which had been made popular by musicians like Otuoma Ogolo, Mbui Jachur and later Ogola Opot also influenced the acoustic guitar in terms of moulding single-note picking rather than strumming. Its playing technique, together with that of the orutu formed the root of the high-pitched electric lead guitar and bass that was the vogue of mid-1970s benga bands. Today, one typically finds up to four guitars interplaying in synchronized harmony and the high-pitched lead still typifies the benga beat.

Benga pioneers were, in local parlance, ―one-man guitarists‖ accompanied by a conductor-an improvised instrument in the form of a wooden box which maintained the rhythm. Later, novel accompaniment was discovered in the form of the rhythmic strumming of the grooves of the 1960s Fanta soft drink bottle. This kind of performance shared many similarities with that of a nyatiti player and his ankle shaker.

Transition to Benga

Soon after the end of the Second World War, a handful of demobilized soldiers who had been conscripted from Luoland arrived back home with an instrument that would herald new practices of entertainment amongst their people—the Spanish guitar. Though the fairly sophisticated accordion had penetrated Nyanza after the First World War, its chords did not quite capture the emotions, popular imagination and the creative impulses of the locals in the way the strings of the acoustic guitar did. Musicians like Nyangira Obong‘o, Achwal, Aton Mito and later Oguta Lie Bobo attained some success with their accordion music, but it soon paved way for what the locals called a ‗box guitar‘, which truly appealed to the Luo ear. Interestingly the accordion had a far greater appeal and impact amongst the Kikuyu people of central Kenya.

In the late 1940s individual guitar players began plucking away at the chords as they would the nyatiti, all the while singing in the language of the lake shore people. Traditional Luo dance forms and songs were fused to produce new and distinct guitar-generated beats and riffs. The foreigner‘s instrument was slowly becoming an indispensable part of the leisure and entertainment of the local community.

The ex-soldiers and their students particularly liked to play the guitar next to a granary. These traditional food stores were often erected a distance away from the main houses, the better for naughty lyrics to escape the ears of the innocent. The Luo word for granary is ―dero‖ while the expression ―tie dero‖— the local reference to early guitar-music— denotes the idea of being ―around and about‖ the granary.

Siaya County Arts Network 8 The Ogara Years

By the early 1950s, pioneering Luo musicians like Obuondo Atwanga , John Odula, Oyugi Tobby, Ojwang Bathlomeyo, Owiti (Dewitts), the group Lango Obiero, John Lang‘o, Olulo Ochenya and Olima Anditi were already recording songs, the latter producing the memorable track ―Sabina.‖ But it is the late John Ogara Odondi ―Kaisa‖ who is regarded as one of the trail-blazing benga pioneers who spread it beyond local village confines, ingeniously shaped its style and nurtured a new crop of benga artistes.

The next step was to unfold when John Ogara founded Ogara Boys Band in 1960 with Aketch Oyosi. With the recruitment of Nelson Ochieng‘ Orwa two years later, Ogara transformed his group into a three-piece acoustic and vocal group. Ochieng‘ Orwa was a young and extremely talented guitarist who would come to be known by the stage name of Ochieng‘ Nelly. He must be distinguished from another accomplished performer bearing a similar name, Ochieng Nelly Mengo, who was one of the founders of the 1970s Victoria Kings Band. Other pioneers and contemporaries of Ogara at that time were Adero Onani, Owiti Origo, and Festo Ochuka.

In 1963, the Ogara trio recorded the song ―Selestina Juma‖ at the African Gramophone Stores, famously known as AGS, in Nairobi. Curiously, the song bears a distinct beat of ska, the precursor of today‘s reggae. The trio‘s guitar work was evidently inspired by influences from way beyond Luoland and was pretty much ahead of its time. It is possible that its ingenuity came from itinerant guitarists from the Congo, Uganda and Zambia who were already visiting Nairobi in the 1960s. Musicians such as Jean Bosco Mwenda, Edward Masengo, Nashil Pichen, Peter Tsotsi and Ugandan bassist Charles Sonko introduced exotic styles which were snapped up by their local collaborators who included Daudi Kabaka , Fadhili William, John Mwale, John Nzenze and Gabriel Omolo.

Another illustrative recording by the ambitious Ogara Boys was the 1965 track titled ―Samuel Aketch‖ in which Aketch is praised and the word ―benga‖ mentioned in animation. Apparently the song was composed after Aketch briefly left the group. In the same way as this lyrical utterance ties Ogara to the emergence of a genre, veteran Kericho-based music producer and retailer A.P. Chandarana, is on record as remarking, ―Benga is Ogara.‖ John Ogara died in 1998 in Kandiege Village in Karachuonyo, South Nyanza.

Origin of the Word

The debate over the actual origins of the word ―benga‖ has been raging since the 1960s when it first became a mainstream genre. Typical of many other music genres worldwide, the struggle to pinpoint the origins of a style is especially difficult when its name is unrecognizable in any known ethnic language.

Some of the musicians who were interviewed claim the word originated from the Congo. In the 50s a number of Luo people travelled to that vast country for work and adventure and came back home with the term.

Other players and enthusiasts maintain that the term is derived from a Luo word, arguing that, in the Dholuo language, describing something as ―obeng‘ore,‖ for instance, implies it is in a state of looseness, lacks rigidity or seriousness. They advance that in music, this can be understood in the context of one being relaxed and happy- which is the very basis of dance and celebration. Other people associate the word ―benga‖ with the dress fashions of the 50s and 60s. In particular, they single out a skirt that was in vogue at the time. Aketch Oyosi and Ochieng‘ Nelly are in agreement about this. The skirt was known as the ―Ogara Skirt,‖ named after their band leader, John Ogara.

1970s benga producer, Oluoch Kanindo concurs with the former members of the Ogara Boys Band about the skirt style that lent its name to the musical genre. According to him benga skirts were so fashionable in the 60s that women would travel long distances from their homes to have them made.

The late Benga maestro D.O. Misiani at one time said the term was derived from his mother‘s maiden name, but that claim has been dismissed by most people. However, pundits agree that Misiani was clearly the king of benga. But to add to the confusion on its origin, the word benga features

Siaya County Arts Network 9 prominently in the lyrics of DR Congo‘s Franco‘s song, ‗Tcha Tcha Tcha de mi Amor‘ which was released in the 50s.

At the turn of the 60s, Benga was still in its infancy. No one could possibly tell that a particular genre was being developed. Although the Ogara Boys helped shape its style, marrying it with new elements from a fast urbanizing Nairobi, they unwittingly left it to others like George Ramogi and D.O. Misiani to develop the genre further and gain acclaim for shaping a genuine Kenyan sound. Electric Bands and Big Producers

Out of the Ogara years came a marked proliferation of the first proper bands, which were now outfits of at least three guitars and a drum set. With them came the 45 rpm vinyl records and the debut of the now well-known names in benga, who include George Ramogi, George Ojijo, D. O. Misiani, Orwa Jasolo, Ochieng Nelly Mengo, Collela Mazee, Paddy Onono, Brother Charley, Peter Owino Rachar, Leonard Omedo, Cheplin Kotula of Kawere Boys, John Otonde of Kiwiro Jazz, Kaudha Twins, Awino Lawi, Opiyo Emma and Musa Olwete. Later Ouma Omore, the Victoria Chomeka band, Ouma Jerry, Kassongo Polo Menyo, Osito Kalle and Okatch Biggy emerged.

Many of these musicians had now dumped their acoustic guitars and snapped up electric ones; as it was said, ―the power had been turned on.‖ Most of these pioneers have since passed on with only a handful left in active music.

The era of 78 rpm discs and His Master‘s Voice (HMV) gramophones had been ushered in by European producers when Kenya‘s first recording studio was set up in 1947. This is the magical year in which pioneer guitarist, Fundi Konde, who was a member of the Entertainment Unit during the Second World War reportedly played Kenya‘s first electric guitar. European recording companies were to hold a monopoly over the East African music industry for many years to come before independent Kenyan producers made real headway.

Rivaling the Europeans at the time was Kenyan producer of Indian ancestry, A.P. Chandarana, who set up base in Kericho, lying in the lush tea- growing regions east of the Rift Valley, and has remained there since. It is at Chandarana‘s studios that a vast number of musicians from western Kenya first put their work on spool tapes. Chandarana‘s business acumen was in large part responsible for the replication of the Benga sound by singers from the mid-Rift Valley region. His shop and recording premises in the town are still in operation, though he has retreated into reclusive old age and is hardly keen on granting media interviews.

The pre-Ogara period saw the emergence of the first influential indigenous African producers. At the time, they were more of talent scouts in the employ of big multinationals such as AIT, Andrew Crawford, Polyd or and EMI.By the turn of the 60s, they had set up their own labels and throughout the 70s they were pivotal forces in the emergence of new groups and evolving sounds. David Amunga of Kassanga and Phares Oluoch Kanindo, who worked under numerous record labels like AIT, EMI and later his own label POK, are amongst the key producers of that era. Amunga is the one African producer to whom a myriad of Kenyan musicians owe their success. He knew how to identify talent and nurture it, and signed on musicians from different ethnic backgrounds and styles. However, most of them later fell out with him because of his brash style of management.

From the late 60s, substantial stakes in the local music industry were also held by Indian-owned record retail shops and recording studios such as Assanands & Son, which moved from Mombasa to what was then Government Road (present-day Moi Avenue) in Nairobi and Melodica on the busy Tom Mboya Street. Although depressed today by technological advances that have significantly stunted music sales by making reproduction quick and cheap for music pirates, Melodica remains in operation stocking numerous ―zilizopendwa‖ golden oldies.

Melodica‘s precursor was known as Bonanza Music Store located on Luthuli Avenue. Founded by Mzee Daudia in 1963, the name was inspired by the American cowboy TV series of the time and it quickly became a Benga musician‘s Mecca. The shop moved to its present location on Tom Mboya Street in 1971, with Daudia renaming it Melodica. He was passionate in his promotion of local artistes. One of his sons, Abdul Karim, now runs the outlet with no less great passion. It is a shrine for many Kenyans who have either been away from the country for long or reside outside the capital. They visit it to collect old hits every time they are in Nairobi. Melodica has also received numerous musicians eager to experiment with Kenyan styles and Western-based researchers anxious to locate a local music archive.

Siaya County Arts Network 10

Melodica produced Juma Odundo, Adams Nyahone and Ochieng‘ Kabaselleh, a Luo pop artist who occasionally teamed up with Laban Juma Toto, formerly of the Hodi Boys band, to produce some of the best rumba melodies sang in the Luo language. Kabaselleh‘s love for rumba saw him adopt the name of Congo‘s celebrated pioneer musician, Joseph Kabaselleh ‗Le Grand Kalle.‘ Some of Ochieng‘s sons like Babu Kabaselleh and Reggie Kabaselleh are now well-known musicians in their own right, same to his siblings who make up the Bana Kadori band. Ochieng‘ Kabaselleh died in 1998, leaving a vacuum in the leadership of the Luna Kidi band which he founded almost three decades earlier.

By the mid-1970s, studio recording in Nairobi and a handful of other towns was big business. Big studios like Andrew Crawford and Polygram had set up shop in the capital. Polygram, which was based in Nairobi‘s Industrial Area, later held record-pressing monopoly. Other big music labels locally were EMI and CBS, and these attracted artists from as far away as the then Zaire.

But the activity at these multinationals could never rival the volume, spirit and camaraderie that reverberated from the independent studios on Nairobi‘s River Road, which nurtured raw talent and threw together new bands in the flash of a recording session. Musicians from far and wide across the country would congregate at these River Road studios, sometimes recording a song in just one take and cutting the new record in the space of a day.

These independent outlets have remained in business long after the multinational record companies closed shop in the mid-1980s. With the rise of local video production, the vibrant River Road studios have acquired the name ―Riverwood,‖ riding on the success of Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood.

1960s—1970s: the Golden Decades

Benga was for a long time regarded as the music of the lower classes— the subaltern Luo living in the rural areas and urban slums. Indeed, early Benga was known as music of the ―rural and uncultured.‖ The expressions used by musicians and fans alike, jomaranda or jonjore (meaning low class) are pejorative and fairly snobbish ways of describing benga music.

The emergent African elite shunned these ethnic sounds in favour of Western music, which was viewed as being synonymous with ―progress‖ and modernity. In later years, Congolese music would come to be viewed as more suitable entertainment for an emergent urban middle-class. These attitudes in part explain why artists who saw themselves as urbanites, preferred rumba, jazz and Western styles. They include Sila Gwada, father to Rocky and Paddy Gwada of the famous Ashanti Band, Ben Blastas Bulawayo, who worked as a senior manager at Kenya Meat Commission, and the Russia-educated Jose Kokeyo, who was a District Officer.

The seventies were the era in which Oluoch Kanindo, a former technician with the Kenya News Agency and the Voice of Kenya (KBC) grew into a massive music production guru whose dominance and supreme authority over Benga generated many controversies. One of the first big benga bands of that decade, Victoria Kings, was Kanindo‘s brainchild and it grew into a key pillar of the Kanindo stable. Victoria Kings eventually split into sub groups, most of them with the ―Victoria‖ tag appended to them— Victoria A, B, C and D Kings. Kanindo also had a plethora of labels such as Lolwe, Sungura, Oyundi, Duol amongst others.

By 1979, Kanindo had become a household name in the region, controlling an industry worth several million shillings, and determining the fate of Benga musicians besides setting their standards. He is said to have, at times, played bands against each other, dropping some suddenly and giving bigger recording opportunities and visibility to others. It has been suggested that his management style— no doubt motivated by business interests and familial or clan-based loyalties—triggered unprecedented mass production of Benga releases.

He also embarked on the ―Congolization‖ of Benga by encouraging bands under his stable, who included his brother-in-law Dr. Collela Mazee‘s Victoria Kings, to copy Congolese bands like Orchestre Kiam and Lipua Lipua that were being promoted by Congolese musician and businessman Verkys Kiamuangana, who was his business associate. Many of their recordings blatantly lifted recognizable sections of these Congolese songs. This copying was also being replicated at Verkys‘ end. A case in point is the mid-1970s hit ―Nouvelle Generation‖ by the Kinshasa-based Lipua Lipua. The

Siaya County Arts Network 11 high-pitched notes of the rhythm guitar by veteran guitarists Vata Mombasa and Lele N‘Sundi of Orchestra Kiam were frequently imitated by these Benga groups. This borrowing created a new trend where the spark of the Benga guitars was fused with rumba to create a potent form of dance music.

This experimentation later saw Sam Mangwana together with other Congolese musicians like guitarists Lokassa ya Mbongo, Ringo Moya, Nyboma Mwandido, Bopol Mansiamina and Syrian Mbenza form the African All Stars in Abidjan, Cote d‘Ivoire, in 1978. By this time, the popularity of Benga had spread as far as West Africa and as Mangwana once confessed, it was this sound and West African highlife that the people loved.

The African All Stars added elements of this energetic rhythm to the existing Congolese rumba. In the 1980s some members of the African All Stars moved to Paris and formed the Four Stars (Les Quatre Etoiles) and became the base for the fast-paced Congolese music production spiced with additional Caribbean influences like zouk. This music came to be known as Paris soukous, a lively and compelling beat that was different from the one played in Kinshasa.

Their signature of intricate guitars could be heard on virtually every soukous record out of Paris, which became the recording capital for Congolese music. Stars from Kinshasa like Pepe Kalle and Madilu System couldn‘t resist this new trend, and they all trooped to Paris to record with this group of musicians.

Benga spreads its wings beyond the region

But perhaps Oluoch Kanindo‘s most important contribution to Benga was the fact that he took this genre to southern Africa, thanks to his distribution acumen.

In Zimbabwe, the music became so popular that the locals named it ―kanindo‖ after the music producer. All the records bore the label ‗Kanindo‘. Another of Kanindo‘s benga labels was called Sungura, Swahili for ‗rabbit‘ and it too became the name given to a faster variation of the music, a spin off from kanindo. Currently sungura is one of the biggest music genres in Zimbabwe. It is said that many fighters during the independence war in Zimbabwe used to dance to kanindo records during the night vigils known as pungwe.

However, it should be noted that Zimbabweans have their own traditional beats like mbira and chimurenga music which have been popularized by big names like Thomas Mapfumo and Oliver Mtukudzi.

Does Benga have a Future?

Despite all this success Benga has refused to shed the rural tag, with the urban youth preferring Western music. The typical Benga musician will still travel to the capital for recording sessions and a few gigs, but he or she is more comfortable doing gigs in the siwadhas (temporary shelters) of Kenya‘s provincial agricultural shows and seedy small-town pubs or at rural market centres.

Although clubs like the Carnivore have opened up to Benga acts, it is still an occasional thing. Save for the culturally-themed nights–‗Mugithi night‘ for the Kikuyu, ‗Kililimbi night‘ for the Kamba, ‗Mulembe night‘ for the Luhya and ‗Ramogi night‘ for the Luo – which are few and far apart, the rest of the entertainment fare is dictated by the DJs, who have no choice but to play what appeals to the mostly youthful urbanite audience. Benga musicians‘ problems are further compounded by the fact that they can no longer make money like their forebears did from record sales.

The intricacies of vinyl production in the 1970s allowed artistes to gain reasonable remuneration from good sales. In a country where copyright laws are blatantly flouted, cassette tape and CD technology have given the largest share of music profits to music pirates, thereby plunging Benga artistes into near poverty. Benga artistes are also witnessing a ―raid‖ on their primary audiences. The style is being suffocated by the profusion of emergent genres such as the popular Ohangla, named after the traditional Luo set of drums though the music is in fact a scaled down version of Benga played on the electronic keyboard.

Siaya County Arts Network 12 In a sense, Benga music is at a crossroads. It has largely failed to capitalize on technology to grow. It has also failed to adapt to new trends, thereby losing its appeal to the youth.

Normally Benga is dominated by men, but a few female musicians have managed to break through. Notably, they have emerged after the deaths of their musician husbands. A good example is Princess Jully, who took over her husband‘s Jolly Boys Band and went on to make a success of it. Others are Queen Jane of Queenja Les Les, Emily Nyaimbo, Benta Ogwe Chalre, Queen Babito and Linet Aluoch Pamba, among others.

Benga is still shrouded in mystery. One major misconception is that any popular music in Luo is Benga, which normally is not the case. Eldoret-based Awilo Mike won the Kisima Award for Best Benga in 2007 though several observers point out that the group leans more towards rumba. Other prominent musicians who sing in Luo but who do not necessarily play Benga are Gabriel Omolo, Juma Toto, Ochieng Kabaselleh, Mazadijo, Jamnazi Afrika‘s Milton Ongoro, Musa Juma and his brother Omondi Tony, and the current sensation John Junior.

There is no doubt that the Benga beat still pulsates in urban and rural Kenya. The Kondele ―Beer Belt‖ in Kisumu comes alive every night, peaking on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Almost every pub has some make-shift band and some groups have been lucky enough to make a breakthrough nationally. But in many ways, Benga is caught in a time-warp.

Shapers of Benga

Perhaps the best known Benga artiste in Kenya and abroad is Daniel Owino Misiani, commonly known as D.O. Many Benga musicians, including those from other communities, regard him and George Ramogi as their greatest influences. D. O‘s iconic status stems from his powerful compositions and the numerous controversies generated by his polemical, often anti-establishment lyrics. Despite him being Tanzanian, he always immersed himself in Kenyan politics to the chagrin of the Kenyan government, which on several occasions tried to have him deported.

It was the cruel hand of death that finally silenced the man, achieving what the authorities had failed to do. Misiani died on May 17, 2006 in a road accident in Kisumu. His body was repatriated to his hometown of Shirati in Tanzania, where he was laid to rest. However, what most people do not know is that there were many Luo and Luhyia session musicians who created a unique Benga sound on River Road that the musicians from other communities simply adapted to their lyrics. They were known as the River Road session musicians, and usually they would be found around the famous recording studios on River Road waiting for clients to hire them for a recording. These musicians-for-hire included Osumba Rateng, Owacha Willy, Okech Ombasa, Berry Guya, Vincent Bunde ‗Redman‘, Ondiek Nzoi, Juma Othech, Steven Sakwa, soloist Zachariah and Peter Owino Rachar Roland Isese, bassist Swalleh Yussuf, solo guitarist Anzino Osundwa, drummer Issa Juma and Odongo ‗Manila‘ Guya.

These session musicians were rarely given their due credit. But it is thanks to them that Benga spread to the Rift Valley, Eastern and Central Kenya as they propelled into stardom artistes like D.K Kamau, Joseph Kamaru, John Ndichu, Kakai Kilonzo, Katitu Boys, among others. These stars wholly relied on them to shape and refine their music. Some, like the soloist Zachariah, were in such demand he had to shuttle by taxi between sessions in River Road and Polygram Studios in Industrial Area.

Because of his dexterity with the guitar and his ability to improvise on the fly, solo guitarist Vincent Bunde was nicknamed ‗Readyman‘, which was later corrupted to ‗Redman‘ by the Kikuyu musicians who worked with him because of difficulties pronouncing the name. The fact that he could speak kikuyu and Kamba fluently also made him a darling of the musicians from the two communities.

Equally popular was drummer Steven Sakwa, a Luhyia, played for almost all the Kamba bands, including Kakai Kilonzo‘s Kilimambogo Boys.

Peter Owino Rachar featured in most of the early recordings by D. K. Kamau Mwai who was considered the biggest success in Kikuyu benga. with his cross-over national hit ‗I Love You‘ that was released in 1970. According to Osumba Rateng, who we interviewed, the song featured him on lead guitar, Zachariah Shivachi on the rhythm guitar, Juma Othech on the bass and Steven Sakwa on drums. Osumba also played the guitar on many of Joseph Kamaru‘s hit songs. Business was so good that Roland Isese left the Army‘s Ulinzi Band to fully concentrate on River Road. Others like Anzino

Siaya County Arts Network 13 Osundwa played so well he was at times hired to play for Congolese bands like Bana Ikanga.

Currently, the big Benga names have instrumentalists from their own communities who got the skills from the original River Road ‗sessionists‘. However, occasionally rely on the few surviving aces.

Over time Benga has managed to spread to various parts of the country, adapting new flavours as it is transformed to fit into the music of the various communities. Among the Luhyia the most successful Benga artist has no doubt been Sukuma bin Ongaro, thanks partly to the promotional efforts of Art Point‘s Eric Ndeche. The other benga giants are Jacob Luseno, Shem Tube, Nyongesa wa Muganda and Fanuel Amimo. The baton has since passed on to a younger generation that includes Lisanga Generation Band‘s Emmanuel Musindi, Musungu wa Muganda and Phonotex Success band‘s Julius Itenya.

Across in Ukambani the benga sound was largely shaped by two musicians, Kakai Kilonzo and later Francis Danger. Now the leader of Kangundo Dangerous Brothers, Danger was drawn to the vigorous beat and melody of D. O. Misiani‘s Lala Salama and Harusi ya MK, which he first heard in 1972. Later musicians who adapted the genre include Katitu Boys, Kimangu Boys, Kalambia Boys, Peter Mwambi and the current sensation, Ken wa Maria, among others.

For the central region, the key shaper is undoubtedly D K Mwai. CDM Kiratu was another success in this genre. Joseph Kamaru‘s experimentation with Benga was not as successful as his dalliance with mwomboko. D.K. influenced latter-day musicians like Albert Gacheru, John De Mathew, Timona Mburu, Wamumbe, and Peter Kigia.

In Kisii, the most successful artiste was Christopher Monyoncho Araka, who was nicknamed the ‗Skin of the Python‘ because of his ability to reinvigorate his music over the years he was an active musician. He died in 2013.

Angelica Chepkoech and her Kalenjin Sisters band, which she co-founded with the late Elizabeth Chepkorir, is perhaps the best known non-Luo benga musician in the Rift Valley. But her success was midwifed by the work of earlier musicians such as the Kipsigis musicians Kipchambai arap Tapotuk with his band Koilonget Band, Chebaibai who sang the song ―Dot.com‖ and the famous Kipchambai arap Butuk.

Although some young Luo musicians have lately switched their allegiance to rumba, there are others who have stuck to the original Benga. They include Aluoch Jamaranda, Dola Kabarry, Atomi Sifa, Omondi Long Lilo, Odhiambo Tusker, Oginga Wuod Awasi and Jerry Jalang‘o.

When the multinationals made their exit in the 1980s their place was taken by independent record labels such as POK, Doromy Instrumental Company, Jaca(ACK) Productions, Oula Recording Company, Matunda Records, Studio Sawa, Sibuor Records, Sokota Music Store, Wamenyo Productions, Umoja Store, Diploma, and Jojo Records. Most of these indie labels were based in River Road. However, due to their lack experience in the music industry and lack of access to the international distribution network, they soon found the going tough. Piracy and the market‘s preference for Congolese music also added to their woes and soon some started closing shop. The few of these indie labels that are still in active business include Jojo Records and Studio Sawa.

With most indie labels closing shop the demand for session musicians went down. Many of these pioneer ‗sessionists‘ have since passed on. Only a few of the sessionists are still in operation. They include Osumba Rateng, wo has since relocated from River Road to his rural home in Sega, Siaya County.

And as new trends emerge on the market and technological advances pose new challenges, Benga continues to hold its own as the definitive Kenyan sound.

Siaya County Arts Network 14

What is an Artist?

Laurence Olivier

Obviously, an artist is someone who creates art, just a baker is someone who makes bread, and a plumber is someone who installs and repairs plumbing. These are simply trades and professions; that is, means by which different people make their livings.

Unlike plumbing or baking however, the difficulty lies in defining "art." Art is pretty much whatever anybody says it is, and an artist is similarly anybody who says he is one. This leaves any definition of "artist" and "art" so vague as to be meaningless. Does the act of creation, be it ever so humble or idiosyncratic, suffice to allow one to lift the laurel of "artist" to his brow? Anybody can call himself anything, but the test is whether or not you actually are qualified. A plumber would not dare to call himself a plumber unless he were qualified in the opinion of others to do plumbing, and had experience and credentials to prove it, and actually got paid good money for his work. The same is true of an automobile mechanic, elementary school teacher or newspaper reporter. You can't just call yourself a college professor or medical doctor and expect anyone to take you seriously. You need to have something to back it up. The term "artist," unlike "electrician," or "dog trainer," neither conveys qualification, nor is it specific enough to shed much light on what a person may actually do.

There are classes of activities that often fall under the term "art," such as the lively arts, the performing arts, and the like; thus a dancer could reasonably be called an artist within the context of dance. But if you were to ask a dancer what she does, and she were to reply, "I am an artist," you would not be much the wiser concerning her activities. It would be far more illuminating for her to say, "I am a classical ballerina," or "I am a choreographer."

A person may be exceptionally good at something, so much so that he may be called "a culinary artist," or "a musical artist," or "a con artist." This implies that he transcends the ordinary, and does something creative in his trade, so much so that by the standards of cooks, or con men, he is an "artist." But it would be misleading for that person to say, "I am an artist," when asked what he does for a living. Far better to say "I am a cook," and leave it to others to call you an artist.

My brother is a professional musician. He calls himself a jazz musician, and more specifically, he plays the bass. He is good at it, and this is how he makes his living. Whether or not he is an artist does not seem to concern him much. What does concern him is getting work in his chosen profession, and getting paid for it.

I find it useful, when asked what I do for a living, to say that I am a printer and graphic designer, and leave it up to the questioner to decide whether or not I qualify as an artist. When I started in my trade, graphic designers were called "commercial artists," as distinct from the more revered class of "fine artists." This title seemed crass and meretricious, and in the late 1960s the trade began referring to itself as "graphic artists," which did not, in fact, change what it did, nor that it worked in exchange for money, nor that the client dictated what was to be done and how it was to be done and for how much. Around ten years later, "graphic artists" began calling themselves "graphic designers," perhaps to avoid the confusion between themselves and fine artists altogether.

"Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art."--Tom Stoppard

Part of the problem lies in the area of fine art itself. People respect skill and technique, the more so in areas that they do not fully understand. A painstaking model of a three-masted sailing vessel, perfect in every detail, is something that anyone can appreciate. The person who made the model not only understood ships and rigging, but was exceptionally skilled at careful, detailed woodwork. Whether or not this model ship exemplifies a great creative glorification of mankind's aesthetic strivings, it is still a well made thing. People to some extent evaluate any manifestation of art in

Siaya County Arts Network 15 these terms: "Gee! I could never do that!"

A sculpture by Michaelangelo is obviously the product of great skill and imagination. A painting by Giotto, or Rembrandt; an engraving by Durer; a composition by Beethoven, Mozart or Bach; all these recommend themselves to even the ignorant audience as at least highly skilled technical undertakings. Not so, unfortunately, with the paintings of Jackson Pollock. Not so with the average Master of Fine Arts exhibition at a university museum. Not so, indeed, with much of the fine or academic artistic offerings of the last century and this. At the common level, many if not most of these exhibitions are greeted by the general public in these terms: "A child of six could do it!"

This modern work may be creative in every sense. It may be that it is a great expression of the human condition. But, to the general observer, it looks like anybody with a little paint and a lot of chutzpah could have done the same.

What has happened is that the "art" part of art--that is the apparent skill and technique resulting from talent and training--has been replaced by the conceptual part. So much so, that the conceptual part has eclipsed and replaced the execution.

"I have nothing to say / and I am saying it / and that is poetry / as I needed it" --John Cage

I have no quarrel with John Cage's renowned conceptual composition 4'33'', which is played at the piano and is divided into three movements. All of the notes are silent. The composition takes its name from the fact that it requires four minutes and thirty-three seconds to perform. I will admit that John Cage had nothing to say, and said it very well.

"The more minimal the art, the more maximum the explanation." --Hilton Kramer

I have less patience with the numerous paintings which are all in white, portraying nothing. I am particularly displeased with such vapidity when they are titled "untitled," thus emphasizing their nothingness. Some of these paintings have more texture than others, but all of them display the same level of skill and competence in execution: none. All of these nameless paintings--at least all that I have seen--are accompanied with lengthy expositions on why they are valid and interesting, flying directly in the face of the observed fact that they are neither valid, nor interesting. I am afraid that I do not understand, and am not interested in, Robert Rauschenberg's Erased de Kooning Drawing: an art work that takes the work of another artist and erases it, and then displays the erased drawing as a work of art in itself. This may be a deep and penetrating commentary on the intellectual climate in which these artists find themselves imprisoned, but personally, I don't get it.

"The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public." --Henry Geldzhaler

Rauschenberg's, and similar, extreme expressions of conceptual art leave me cold, and near as I can tell, also do not interest many, many millions of others. When I see, presented in the name of art, a pile of rocks; or wads of crumpled newspaper encased in chicken wire and spray painted gold; or a load of garden dirt emptied out onto a polished floor, my reaction is simple: if this is art, I don't want to have anything to do with it. I don't want to be called an artist or be associated with this gaggle of over-educated, incompetent, tiresome men and women who have nothing to say and, worse yet, say it very badly.

"It reflects no great honor on a painter to be able to execute only one thing well -- such as a head, an academy figure, or draperies, animals, landscapes, or the like -- in other words, confining himself to some particular object of study. This is so because there is scarcely a person so devoid of genius as to fail of success if he applies himself earnestly to one branch of study and practices it continually." --Leonardo da Vinci

I am a competent technician. I give value for value. I am an honest workman, and I do not want people to think that I am a con-man, running a scam, cheating the king out of his money under the pretense of making for him a suit of clothes that only the virtuous can perceive.

Therefore I do not call myself an artist. I create flat, representational objects---books, illustrations, posters, stained glass windows, greeting cards, wedding invitations, wine labels--in return for money. I'm glad that people like what I do, because that means that I can go on doing it. I like what I do, and consider it a privilege to be able to make my living doing it. But, I am not, at least in twenty-first century terms, an artist. I'll leave that to those who have no idea at all of what they do, or who they are, or where they are going, and must, for want of any other word, call themselves artists.

Siaya County Arts Network 16

Book Review

Akoyo Beverly Ochieng

The Novel ‘Dust’ by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

In the acknowledgements for her debut novel, Dust, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, concludes by saying:

―Finally, thank you Kenya – my canvas, haunting, rage, passion, song, impulse, yearning love, frustration and inspiration, and your fierce, fun and fascinating peoples, who laugh at themselves, and muddle hard towards a goal they ache for. To ―disappeared‖ Kenyans, the ones we forgot about…and denizens of vast northern lands…I beg your indulgence. I have reshaped trails, places, narratives, people, creatures, landscape and names in order to carve out this story.‖

In the blurb, Dust is described as ―a work of art‖ whose canvas is Kenya, a mercurial character rich in subtext and content. The novel paints a distinct image of the country through description, character portrayal, and historical coverage. It bleeds Kenya, bleeds for Kenya:

―Bloody Kenya. Bloody. Not blasphemy. Bloody.

Blood seemed to leak from too many holes there. A cut bled. Sunset bled. Sheep bled. Red mud roads bled. Sunset-sunrise bleeding.

Oozing life, seeping death. The full moon bled on water.‖

Siaya County Arts Network 17

The primary plot sees Arabel Ajany Oganda return from Brazil following the death of her older brother Moses Ebewesit Odidi Oganda. Other journeys are also charted in the story. The early arrival of Hugh and Selene Bolton, who leave England‘s ―weary nostalgia for a past that had been burned‖, to come to Kenya in the 1950s. We learn that they, like other white settlers of the time, sought adventure in blank-slate kingdoms, where [they] owned the rules and would make a country in [their] image. There is also the journey of Isaiah Bolton, who comes to Kenya to seek out his father.

The element of ownership resonates throughout the story, and as all of the characters seek some sense of belonging, there is the begging question, who can lay claim and to what?

Hugh Bolton is determined to make Kenya his country. To build a life in it for himself and his bride, Selene. He says, ―‘My people created this country. I‘ll be damned if I‘ll be forced out. This is my country.‘‖ Meanwhile, Selene becomes increasingly concerned with Hugh‘s mys: My country. My land. My dream. My people. ‗My people built this land, named it, toiled, built, and died for it‘.

Isaiah Bolton seeks to (re)claim his father‘s home and a legacy. Ajany lays claim to Odidi‘s baby that Justina carries, as a piece of her brother; Odidi hopes to claim justice; Nyipir wants to (dis)own his name; Akai-ma wants for her son to come back to her.

In its richness, Dust is an epic tale, covering vast distances, charting wide journeys both in the physical and mental spaces. Some of the widest distances are covered through the use of memory. Memory is unconfined, ethereal, (re)creation. ―Memories are ghosts,‖ Nyipir thinks.

―Kenya‘s official languages: English, Kiswahili and Silence. But there was also memory (own italics).‖ Memory gives the story movement, physically and mentally.

―Memory ticks. Odidi soars into the desiccated terrain of Wuoth Ogik, the home he abandoned… He turns down Jogoo road and glances upward, childhood habit…‖

The first epigraph in the novel, taken from Juan Ruflo‘s Pedro Páramo, also serves as an epitaph for Odidi: ―You will hear the voice of my memories/stronger than the voice of my death – that is, if death has a voice.‖ Odidi, the ghost in the story, is consistently evoked through memory. He is a constant haunting. He is elusive. He is what Akai-ma wants that she cannot have back and what Ajany seeks but cannot find. He is the collective trauma of the story.

The fragmented nature of Owuor‘s style of writing speaks to the fragmented nature of memory, language, and the story as a whole. Details that flesh out the story come down in dribbles as one event catalyses another and another. As in Owuor‘s concluding words of the acknowledgements, Dust is a ‗haunting, rage, passion, song‘ and sometimes a ‗frustration‘ to read, (I had to go over passages more than once at times to follow links and connections through), which does not necessarily mean it can put a reader off (I found myself constantly looking forward to reading it, at night, when everyone was asleep and I could let the words crawl under my skin), it is simply not a book that can be read in a place with many distractions.

Dust is filled with many vivid descriptions of setting, at times immersing the reader in them and in other instances, especially when shifting through memories, displacing the reader. The northern territories of Kenya tend to be so removed, yet in the novel, Owuor makes it very present. In the ―sparse pastures [and] ephemeral watering holes‖ we find ―[d]ust-filled cupules containing red, black, green and white speckle the land‖

The very landscape is representative of the colours of the Kenyan flag.

There is a long standing joke that people from the Northern parts of Kenya ask anyone who has come from the interior, ―How is Kenya?‖, and Owuor embeds this idea in her novel, not as a perpetuation of the norm but as a reflection of this alienation.When Ajany makes her journey to Nairobi to

Siaya County Arts Network 18 retrace her brother‘s steps, her mobile phone clicks to life ―as if reborn‖. This is evocative in the rather humorous frustration of Aaron Chache whose placement at the police post in the northern margins of Kenya sees him have ―plenty of time to regret many things. The absence of regular fruit. Few opportunities to speak English.‖

Landscape is both physical and emotional, and etches itself in the characters. Ajany and Odidi‘s parents, Akai-ma and Nyipir, are hardened by their environment and assume a stoic grace. We see ―the shadow of Wuoth Ogik. Bloodline on Odidi‘s face.‖ In one striking portrayal, Selene finds that ―Kenya [is] seeping into Hugh. His eyes had deepened, gone grayer, bolder, older. His cheeks were sunken, contoured, scarred, tinged with heat, his skin mottled. He laughed, much louder, head thrown back.‖

Owuor‘s characters are richly fleshed out. Each is given a history, even when it seems completely irrelevant as in the case of the Indian innkeeper, Baba Chaudhari, who only makes two appearances and whose story, though colourful, does not add to the context or content of the story. Nevertheless, the central characters are capably handled. Owuor captures, for instance, the timid nature of Ajany who always ―lurked in Odidi‘s shadows‖, the quiet solemnity of Selene who constantly ―retreated into non-engaged observation‖, and the immensity of Odidi in the parallel drawn between his death and the assassination of Tom Mboya.

―This death created a fissure in the nation.‖

Petrus Keya, Nyipir‘s former colleague, reflects on ―how we lose the country, one child at a time.‖ Odidi‘s death catalyses the events of the narrative just as that of Mboya catalysed significant political and social events in Kenya in the late 1960s. The personal loss of the Oganda family is looked at from the perspective of a national one. ―Family as a microcosm of our national dysfunction,‖ Owuor says in an interview.

In one of his many diatribes against the crop of Kwani? writers, Abenea Ndago argues that Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor‘s Dust ‗bags the trophy for ethnic simple-mindedness. By moaning (mourning?) about political assassinations, Owuor dances to the usual drum of Luo denial and ignorance.‘

Launched shortly before Kenya marked 50 years of independence, Dust is aptly written for a generation [that] so easily discards the burdens of history and its mind-the-gap strictures. However, Owuor is not interested in being a ―balanced historian‖, as Ndago seems to prescribe. She delineates a lost and soon to be forgotten history, creating a collective memory in which [the current] generation is forced to ask: Where did this begin? Where did this wounding start? And in retracing those steps they‘ll go to the place of the original wound. In doing so, we undertake a journey similar to that of Ajany or Isaiah who return to retrace. For these reasons, Dust is perhaps one of the most relevant and contemporary texts in Kenya‘s literary landscape. It is a cultural inheritance.

Reading Dust felt like a sort of homecoming, which is the most prevalent theme in the novel. In his final moments, Odidi‘s heart bleeds out his answer: Coming home, wait for me‘. Ajany returns on account of her brother. During her leave-taking, Odidi tells her ―This, [he] emphasised, this is home.‖ When Hugh Bolton arrives with his bride, Selene, in Kilindini, he allays her panicked need for return to England by saying; ―We are home, my love, we‘re home.‖

By the end of the novel, everything and everyone ends up in Wuoth Ogik.

―This place. Wuoth Ogik. Forces converged here. People left stories at springs. These were passed on from one season to another.‖

Hugh, after much disillusionment with the rest of Kenya, ironically establishes himself in the northern territories, where he builds himself the house that the Oganda family come to occupy and Isaiah seeks to claim.

Upon completion of the house, he has the following conversation with Nyipir, who at the time is his houseboy: ―Kijana, utatumia neno gani kwa lugha yako kuhusu nyumba mpya? Neno sio kishenzi. What word can be used to name this home? Something civilised?‘ …‗Wuoth Ogik?‘ …‗Na maana yake ni nini, kijana…‘ ‗The journey ends.‘

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A TALE OF GRACE OGOT

Peter Ngangi

For decades, she took up the pen and told the most gripping stories that hooked many a reader. She is no doubt a woman who has powerfully influenced East Africa‘s literary narrative.

Grace Ogot is a pioneer. She earned a distinctive position in Kenya‘s literary and political history. In 1984, she was the best-known writer in East Africa. It is then that she decided to join politics. She became one of the few women to serve as a Member of Parliament and the only female assistant minister in President Moi‘s Cabinet. She also worked as a midwife, tutor, journalist and a BBC Overseas Service broadcaster. Ogot was born Grace Emily Akinyi in Asembo, in Nyanza district on May 15, 1930. She was the child of pioneering Christian parents in the traditional Luo stronghold of Asembo. Her father, Joseph Nyanduga, was an early convert to the Anglican Church and one of the first men in Asembo to receive Western education. He later taught at the Church Missionary Society‘s Ng‘iya Girls School. She remembered her father reading her Bible stories, as well as hearing the traditional stories told by her grandmother.

Later, Ogot‘s writing reflected this dual background of tradition and modernity and the tensions between the two. Emerging from the promised land in the anthills of the Savannah, Ogot attended Ng‘iya Girls‘ School and Butere High School. The young woman trained as a nurse in both Uganda and England. Several years of working as a nursing sister and midwifery tutor at Maseno Hospital, and later at the Student Health Service at Makerere University College, provided her experience in a number of different careers. She worked as a script-writer and broadcaster for the BBC Overseas Service (later having her own popular weekly radio programme in Luo), as a community development officer in Kisumu, and as a public relations officer for Air India. In the late 1960s, she opened two branches of a clothing boutique known as Lindy‘s in Nairobi. First novel Ogot was a founding member of the Writers‘ Association of Kenya and served as its chairman from 1975 to 1980. She began to publish short stories both in English and in Luo in the early 1960s. She was famous as much for what she represented as for what she wrote, giving literature a whole new meaning for African pupils. Her first novel, The Promised Land, was published in 1966. It featured challenges faced by Luo pioneers who moved across the border into Tanzania in search of greater opportunities. Land Without Thunder, a collection of short stories about traditional life in rural Western Kenya, appeared in 1968. These stories were immensely powerful.

Two other short story collections, The Other Woman and Other Stories (1976) and The Island of Tears (1980), as well as second novel, The Graduate (1980) followed. The novel described the tribulations of a young Kenyan graduate who returns home after study in the United States. Ogot‘s short stories often weaved old and new material together by presenting traditional curses and mysteries confounding modern Kenyans in new urban settings. In a series of historical novels she went back several centuries to reconstruct Luo history.

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A number of her stories have been dramatised and performed in Kenya. Many of the short stories in Land Without Thunder are set in ancient Luoland. Ogot‘s descriptions, literary tools, and storylines offer a valuable insight into Luo culture in pre-colonial East Africa. The writer has published works in both English and Dholuo – some of her works were first published in the Dholuo language. Personal life Ogot was the first woman to have fiction published by the East African Publishing House. The young icon of African literature married historian Bethwell Alan Ogot, a Luo from Gem Location, in 1959 and gave birth to four children. In recognition of her blossoming literary career, she was named a delegate to the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1975, and as a member of the Kenyan delegation to UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation) in 1976. President Moi appointed her to Parliament in 1985 and as assistant minister for culture. In 1988 she returned to Parliament as a member for husband‘s home in Gem and was reappointed to her ministerial position. Ogot‘s family members shared her interest in politics. Her husband, served as head of Kenya Railways and also taught history at Kenyatta University.

Her older sister, Rose Orondo, served on the Kisumu County Council for several terms, and her younger brother Robert Jalango was elected to Parliament in 1988, representing their family home in Asembo. Grace Ogot can undoubtedly be said to be one of Africa‘s finest writers.

Her writing style is splendid in its evocation of vivid imagery; she captures the formalities of traditional African interpersonal exchanges, governed by protocol and symbolism. Many of her stories are set against the scenic background of Lake Victoria and the traditions of the Luo people. Her prose is evocative of traditional folklore – such as in The Strange Bride, a novel about a mystical and provocative female character in ancient Luoland. Unfortunately, even though the strange bride and the other woman exist, the beautiful ones are not yet born. Grace Ogot is a great African hero who can be credited with being the first African woman writer to be published in English with her two short stories in 1962 and 1964. Her attitude towards language is similar to that of her fellow Kenyan, Ngugi wa Thiong‘o. She continues to inspire everyone. As she said, ―When you are frightened, don‘t sit still, keep on doing something. The act of doing will give you back your courage.‖

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