Kenya Music

While in Kenya, be it in Nairobi, on the long bus ride to Garissa, or anywhere in between, you'll hear music playing.

In August, each year, Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi, is home to the Kenya Music Festival. This is an exciting, ten day event, that features mostly African music. There seem to be two main genres of music - the sounds of Swahili influence as well as Congolese. With many different regional styles, there has also been recent interest in western hip-hop where two different styles have emerged. Genge and Kapuka beats are extremely popular and have created a dominant industry among the youth.

Mixing languages into a single song is not unusual with some sharing a language called Sheng, being a mix of English and Swahili.

Photo © Wikipedia

Every year many Kenyan artists compete for recognition in the Kisima Music Awards made up of talents from East Africa, held in Kenya.

The African children's choir are an amazing group of orphaned children from Kenya who tour the world sharing their talents and energy bringing awareness of their situations to many. A most wonderful group that we have seen perform several times and would recommended without hesitation.

As quoted by Founder, Ray Barnett, the choir celebrates the lives of hurting African children.

"Inspired by the singing of one small boy, we formed the first African Children’s Choir™ — to show the world that Africa’s most vulnerable children have beauty, dignity and unlimited ability."

Read more about what the choir is doing in Kenya here.

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