By Ogova Ondego
Published November 27, 2013
Nairobi’s Kiss 100 Radio, that’s running a series of broadcasts on Kenyan music titled ‘Keeping it Kenyan’ between November 17 and December 15, 2013, is on December 1, 2013 “looking back into the Darkest Decade of the Kenya music industry – the period of 1983 to 1992 – when disco killed live music.”
Presenter Adelle Onyango shall between 10AM and 2PM interact with Joseph Omari of the Mighty Cavaliers of Dunia Ina Mambo fame and Just-A-Band that has in this age of electronic music redone the song “as we learn from our past, to plan our future.”
So why focus on the ‘Darkest Decade of the Kenya music’?
“This is when Kenyan had bands like The Mighty Cavaliers of ‘Dunia Ina Mambo’ fame, who ruled Nairobi’s live music scene from their 1968 debut at Camay Grill throughout the 1970s at the famous Starlight Club (where Integrity Centre now sits in Milimani) and to their disbandment in the early 1980s,” a media release from Kenya Music Week says.
Omari, leader and singer of The Mighty Cavaliers, shall be in the Kiss FM studio to reminisce about those good old days and tell us about what happened to live music and their albums when international disco arrived in Kenya.”
That Just-A-Band, who have ironically embraced what disco became – electronic music – to create their new Kenyan sound, just shows how much the two generations–almost three decades apart–have in Common with regards to their experiences in the Kenya music sector.
