Kyebukube!
Lindsay and I went to a performance at OU's School of Music tonight. The group was called Biakuye Unity Ensemble, which is kind of redundant because "biakuye" translates as "unity", but we'll ignore that. The group consisted of a man from Ghana, a man from Senegal, and two white American guys, one of whom is the Director of Percussion Studies at OU. They played mostly traditional music from Ghana and Uganda, but they also included American jazz with an African influence. They played a huge number of instruments, ranging from a gyil (like a marimba made of gourds)to a drum kit and bass guitar. It was really cool.
The leader of the group is one of the white guys, Paul Stone. He apparently went to Ghana to study music and ended up marrying the older sister of his bandmate. He came off as very white, but still turned to be a fantastic musician as far as African folk music goes. He did try to get the audience to sing along to one of the songs. We were supposed to sing "Lilililililili Kyebukube!", but it didn't turn out so well. It reminded me of this episode of The Boondocks (the part with the teacher going on about Kwanzaa, not the part where Riley beats the crap out of Santa):
The guy from Senegal was probably the best bass player I've ever heard.
The leader of the group is one of the white guys, Paul Stone. He apparently went to Ghana to study music and ended up marrying the older sister of his bandmate. He came off as very white, but still turned to be a fantastic musician as far as African folk music goes. He did try to get the audience to sing along to one of the songs. We were supposed to sing "Lilililililili Kyebukube!", but it didn't turn out so well. It reminded me of this episode of The Boondocks (the part with the teacher going on about Kwanzaa, not the part where Riley beats the crap out of Santa):
The guy from Senegal was probably the best bass player I've ever heard.