Sonic Collective Nyatiti and Nyangile

As melodic as it is rhythmic, and as hypnotic as it is spiritual, the nyatiti, a 5000-year old eight-stringed lyre is understood by many as the musical lifeline of the Lüo community, and as one of the most recognizable and influential traditional instruments native to East Africa.

For this sample collection Found Sound Nation worked with Rapasa Otieno, an acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, to capture a wide breadth of intricate sounds from his hometown, including sounds of the nyangile (percussion), gara (bells), obokano (lyre), and ong’eng’o (percussion).
Hailing from a village by the warm shores of Africa’s biggest lake, Nam Lolwe (Lake Victoria), Rapasa traces his lineage back to a long line of performers from the Lüo community of western Kenya. Rapasa has studied with various masters of the nyatiti across western Kenya, and his extensive knowledge of Lüo music has led him to not only perform Kenyan traditional music worldwide, but also to create resources within Kenya to nurture the longstanding folk tradition. For Rapasa, the nyatiti is a storyteller: “it gives an insight into our ancestor’s wisdom.” What’s more, this sample pack includes sounds from another instrument similar to the nyatiti, albeit four times its size — the obokano, a lyre of the Abagusii people of Kenya, that sings with a deep and resonant buzzing sound.
156 Samples