Traditional East African music is on the brink of extinction. Why do I say this? 

It is mostly played in rural areas by elderly women and men, while the urban youth have little connection to it. In the next 30 years, many of these custodians will be gone. And buried with them the wealth of knowledge they have carried for decades.

That’s why these cultural heroes have taken up the mission to save our music before it disappears.

On 5th December 2025, I hosted an online panel bringing together Singing Wells and other independent organizations from across East Africa. The goal: to share the lessons, challenges and opportunities they’ve discovered while recording traditional East African music, with us. Especially if you’re passionate about preserving African music.

Restoring What We Forgot

Singing Wells is the world’s largest online archive of traditional East African music, showcasing it through field reports, exhibitions and YouTube videos. Representing Singing Wells on the panel was Tabu Osusa, the co-founder alongside Jimmy Allen of the UK’s Abubilla Music Foundation. Since 2011, their mission has been to research, document and promote the diversity of East African music.

But why?

As Tabu always says, “There’s a lack of a Kenyan musical identity, and a lack of cultural memory in East Africa. Yet traditional music is the source of contemporary music.” 

He reminded us how his Nigerian legend Fela Kuti transformed juju and fuji music into Afrobeat, which later birthed the globe-trotting Afrobeats. He also traced the evolution of South African music from 1920s marabi to kwela to mbaqanga to kwaito and now amapiano.

“Why can’t we make Kenyan genres like mwomboko, benga and taarab current?”

Chief Nyamweya, a Kenyan writer, illustrator and co-founder of Pungulu Pa Productions, became a music archivist and researcher by accident. While searching for Afrocentric content for his children, he found none. So together with his partner, they co-created Uli & Tata’s African Nursery Rhymes, an animated YouTube series preserving children’s folk songs from Kenya and beyond.

On why they do it, Chief shared “Much of our culture is not digitized. Googling will only produce stereotypes”. He also realized that in the field, people are most joyful around childhood memories.

Matt Swallow, UK-born singer-songwriter, producer and creative director of Beneath The Baobabs festival, also runs Baobab Studios in Kilifi. Through their Lutsaga project (Giriama for granary), they’ve recorded 34 genres of Mijikenda music since 2025. Their main mission is to discover and document 60 genres from Giriama, Kauma and Chonyi communities within two years.

Music from East Africa, another independent coastal record label, has recorded artists in Lamu, Kilifi and Watamu playing taarab, zaire ngoma and Afrofusion music. Artists like Makadem and Abaki Simba. Their goal is to help musicians build careers through music sales and live performances.

And sometimes, they remix these traditional recordings into interesting electronic soundscapes.

Kenyan percussionist, instrument maker and self-taught ethnomusicologist Mbutch Mjingoma began field recording in an unexpected way.

“While playing djembe with friends, we were kicked out of the Nairobi National Museum. I decided to do field research in order to know myself.” 

Since then he’s been travelling to the coast recording and learning Mijikenda instruments such as the bung’o and mabumbumbum drums.

Ingabire Giscard started his cultural journey at seven years old in Burundi playing the inanga harp and traditional drums. After learning audio production in modern Nairobi studios, he was called back to his roots. And has since worked with Ketebul Music, Singing Wells, Uli and Tata and more organizations represented in the panel.

Through his platform AFIKC (Africa Indigenous Knowledge Curators), he works to preserve and revitalise traditional African wisdom through oral traditions, spiritual practices and healing knowledge.

Recording Beyond Four Walls

Unlike studio sessions, recording traditional East African music often happens outside of controlled environments.

Simila from Music from East Africa shared an interesting observation: the best acoustics are sometimes found in a traditional mud house with a wooden roof. Because makuti roofs with holes usually leak outside noises. On the field they’ve had to improvise, even using a Covid mask as a pop filter.

While recording in remote places like Budalangi (not to be confused with the DJ), Mbutch Mjingoma and the Sample Bar Kenya team had to negotiate with the roaring Tana River. The project travelled across the country recording samples of various Kenyan instruments and live vocals. They used Shure microphones, a Zoom H5 recorder, and blankets as soundproofing.

Ingabire approaches fieldwork with a live studio setup: laptop, mixer, dynamic mics, shotgun mics and wind screens. He carries this flexible portable studio across different terrains.

The Cost of Keeping Culture Alive

Recording traditional East African music is not easy, or cheap.

For Mbutch, funding is a personal sacrifice. “I make money, travel, spend, get sick, get well, go back, repeat.”

He also pointed to a deeper issue of cultural continuation. “Young people don’t want to learn music because they see musicians living in suffering. Villagers only play in weddings and funerals.”

And as Tabu pointed out – when a generation dies, history dies too.

Chief and the Uli & Tata team faced antiterror police inquiries about their drones while working in Northern Kenya. They also manage over 67TB of archived songs, videos and dances on private servers which is both expensive and risky. What happens when those servers go down?

Tabu suggested having offshore backups, as Singing Wells has in the UK to protect their 15-year archive.

Karim, studio engineer at Baobab Studios in Kilifi, revealed that most Mijikenda groups he works with have never recorded in a studio before. And cannot record with metronome as the tempo changes in the middle of the song. This means it’s difficult to make samples out of this music. A 40-min album is usually recorded as one live performance.

Matt offered another perspective to this challenge.

“The 4/4 model of American pop music of the 20th Century made Celtic and traditional British music uncool. But now it’s coming back. Recording raw Mijikenda music preserves its natural human elements, resists homogenization and relieves us from oontz fatigue.”

Recording with Respect 

An unspoken but important part of recording traditional music is building trust.

Max from Music from East Africa advised: “Spend a week with musicians to get to know them better. A short time makes it hard to get good recordings.”

Tabu mentioned they always start with a recce with 1-2 representatives to explain why they want to record, before the full team arrives.

Ingabire emphasized learning the cultural context and following protocol. Like speaking to the community elders before engaging children.

Johannes from Music from East Africa also shared with us pointers from their 2024 Western Kenya tour. “Understand the people first. And find a location where there are no cows nearby.”

“Musicians are not accustomed to recording instruments then vocals. So give them time. They need to dance, want to play outside and move in circles.”

For Singing Wells, Ingabire uses lapel mics for lead singers and overhead microphones for background vocalists to allow for this natural movement.

As for controlled recordings, Matt shared how with time the Mijikenda musicians are getting more comfortable in the studio. By building friendships, recordings are so much more fun. They’ve even integrated them into Beneath the Baobab Festival lineup and host the Mekatilili wa Menza Mashujaaa Peace Walk Finale every year at Beneath The Baobabs.

From The Village to The Global Stage

Chief narrated a story of recording a Samburu woman with a divine voice who went through a lot of misfortune. A year later, when they returned to play her recording, “she cried.” The moment reinforced the importance of giving back to communities.

On innovation, he noted

“We have to make the music current, 3 minutes max. You can’t do 20-minute Fela Kuti songs anymore. Animation is new media, it employs so many talents – almost as many as games. Why not create a video game with a gÎcandî near a mugumo tree?”

Due to demand, they’re registering Blue Turaco Iabel to provide soundtracks for African filmmakers. They also held their first Pungulu Party on 7th December 2025, which featured live musicians performing children folk songs from the YouTube series. “It can be an East African festival. We can create new marketplaces – events, games, films.”

Ingabire highlighted that many cultural preservation projects rely on external funding. And proposed making sample packs as a potential revenue stream for practitioners.

After attending Indian Ocean Music Market in Reunion, Matt was amazed by the heavy government investment in Maloya music. “Why can’t it happen for Mwanzele? It’s taken over the Kenyan coast, it’s on everyone’s phones, and it’s the best dance you’ll have at the coast. There’s potential for mwanzele artists like Mr Bado and Mzee Tendere to reach wider audiences outside their home turf.”

As Baobab Studios, they’ve brought in Kenyan jazz composers such as Kato Change and Sam Mbaluka to work with these Mijikenda musicians. Such as their label’s second release Utsai Si Nyuwi by Mzee Tendere. This unique fusion could be exported to International jazz markets like Capetown Jazz Festival and Montreal Jazz Festival.

It’s okay for traditional music to stay traditional. But Tabu insisted how you play and compose traditional music makes all the difference. For example, Japanese-born artist Anyango, Kenyan legend Ayub Ogada and Nyatititronix star Makadem all play nyatiti in a contemporary way that has enabled them to tour all around the world.

Simila reminded us to remember overlooked musicians such as Jackson Ingosi who plays the litungu – a Luhya instrument similar to the nyatiti.

“His music is medicine. Such artists lack platforms in the popular music scene because they don’t know how to package the music. Let’s find musicians who don’t follow the metronome and bring them into this world groove. Two worlds coming together.”

Keeping The Sound Alive

This engaging 1hr 30 min conversation made one thing clear: preserving traditional East African music requires documentation, collaboration and sustainable support.

The panelists shared the need for partnerships between contemporary and folk musicians, increased funding for research and fieldwork, and more exchange forums like this.

If efforts by these old and new cultural heroes continue, our traditional music will not die and disappear. Instead, it will evolve, adapt and endure generations to come.

You can also listen to the online panel discussion on YouTube.