The Kawere Boys of Kericho

From 2007 until 2011, I published four dozen pieces on the Voice of America's website.  Each of these pieces took weeks, if not months, of work and were based on interviews with artists, producers, historians, and music journalists. This reporting drew on the resources of the VOA's Africa division, most importantly, the knowledge, networks, language skills, and time of my colleagues, dozens of experienced journalists from throughout Africa.  My objective was not just to share recordings that interested me, but to place these recordings within their historical moment. 

All of this research was scrubbed from the VOA site a year ago and was, I thought, until very recently, lost to me. (I foolishly didn't have archive copies of any of these texts.) A few weeks ago, the radio producer David Goren, sent me a link to an archived page hidden deep in the internet that allowed me to retrieve everything originally published on the VOA African music treasures site. (David and Maria Margoranis have recently produced a BBC program on my mentor Leo Sarkisian and the Music Time in Africa program which i strongly recommend.)

This fortunate turn of events gives me the opportunity to bring together all of this research on one site. I will be publishing the most interesting of these posts in the coming months. The VOA site had several technical limitations, the most frustrating being the extreme compression of the streaming audio files.  Whenever possible, I will be sharing higher quality copies of the recordings included.

The Kawere Boys were formed by Cheplin Ngode Kotula in Kericho, Kenya in 1974, and over the next four years became one of the more popular Benga groups in Luo land. Cheplin Ngode Kotula (he is the gentleman sitting in the picture above) was born, in the late forties or early fifties, in the Kawere neighborhood of the town of Saye Konyango, which is located on the road (the C-26) between Oyugis and Kindu Bay, in Nyanza province, Western Kenya. Cheplin Kotula's first musical mentor was Joseph Lango, who recruited Cheplin to play acoustic guitar with his pick-up group at village ceremonies in Saye Konyango. (While I haven't been able to confirm this hunch, I imagine that Cheplin started his musical career playing the nyatiti lyre or orutu fiddle, like several of the other Kawere boys).

In 1971, after failing his Certificate of Primary Education exam, Cheplin decided to make a career of music. Sometime in 1972, he joined Daniel Owino Misiani and his Shirati Jazz, who were, at the time, the house-band at the Kanyangao bar in Mathare, one of Nairobi's largest slums. After two years, and one too many financial misunderstandings with Misiani, Cheplin decided to start his own group.

Cheplin, along with rhythm guitar player Juma Charlie, and bassist Otieno Ogor — who had both been with Misiani before Cheplin joined the Shirati Jazz — turned to A.P. Chandarana of Kericho for help. According to his younger brother Rasik, A.P. Chandarana started his music business back in 1958, and would eventually release several thousand 45-rpm singles (on at least 15 different labels) featuring a wide range of Kenyan (Luo, Luhya, Kipsigiis, Swahili) and Tanzanian groups. Cheplin Kotula and A.P. Chandarana had met when the Shirati Jazz traveled to Kericho to record for Chandarana (I haven't yet been able to identify which titles Shirati Jazz recorded for Chandarana between 1972-1974). When Cheplin, Juma Charlie and Otieno Ogor arrived in Kericho they had no musical instruments and no place to stay. Chandarana put them up in an apartment and lent them instruments to rehearse and record.

By the time the singer Herman Dinda joined the group in late 1974, the Kawere Boys had already released several singles, purchased their own instruments, and grown to include singers Juma Silas and Osumba John, Aloo Jossy 'Jarapethii', and Juma Charlie playing rhythm guitar, Otieno Ogor on bass, Sadok Otieno and Manase Aroko on drums, and Paul Dinda, Ouko McKenzie, and Cheplin Ngode Katula playing lead guitar. The Kawere Boys relationship with A.P. Chandarana lasted until August of 1975, when Oluoch Kanindo, a Luo music impresario who also served as a member of parliament, and became deputy secretary of education under President Moi, brought them to Nairobi. The Kawere Boys made several recordings for Kanindo at the High Fidelity studios in Nairobi, before heading back to their homes in Oyugis.

The success of the Kawere Boys led to disputes, and the group split in two in early 1978. One group of musicians — which included singers Herman Dinda, a new recruit named Elis Olela, and probably Otieno Ogor, Paul Dinda, Ouko McKenzie, and Manase Aroko — were brought to Kisumu by Oluoch Kanindo, where they performed as the Kalausi Band. The other splinter group, led by Cheplin Kotula, took the name of Kawere Jazz, and included at least Aloo Jossy, and Juma Charlie. After six months of struggle (and some say sabotage by Oluoch Kanindo, who had started to neglect the Kalausi Band to heavily promote Colella Mazee's group) the different Kawere factions regrouped, once again under the leadership of Cheplin Kotula.

This reformation lasted only until the end of 1978, when recently joined guitar player Paul Omari, and a faction of disgruntled band members, parted ways with Kotula and started the Kawere B band (they also recorded as the Kawere B Kings). And although different versions of the Kawere Boys kept performing at least into the early 1980s, the group stopped recording regularly in 1978. Cheplin Ngode Kotula passed away in 1994. Paul Omari's Kawere B band broke up in March 2007. Two of the original Kawere Boys, Herman Dinda and Aloo Jossy continue to perform in Oyugis with the Super K (Kawere) Rangers.

This group of Kawere Boys tracks were released on A.P. Chandarana's Hundhwe label, and recorded by Chandarana himself at his studio in Kericho. A.P. Chandarana ran the board, and recorded the Kawere Boys live to tape through three microphones. These recordings were not only popular throughout Luo land, but also sold well in Tanzania, Malawi, South Africa, Nigeria, Cameroun, and West Africa. Rasik Chandarana, A.P.'s younger brother, remembers traveling to Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Mali, Togo, Ghana, Zambia, and South Africa to sign distribution deals for Chandarana releases. (A colleague of mine from Northern Cameroun can still remember the lyrics to Kawere singles he listened to as a boy.) The Chandarana family has all of A.P.'s master tapes and until very recently continued to sell copies of their recordings at the Chandarana store in Kericho.

Download Kawere Boys 

This feature is based on interviews with Herman Dinda, Paul Omari, and Rasik Chandarana. Many thanks also to Matthews Juma, Douglas Paterson, Ian Eagleson, and Tim Clifford for their help with contacts and research (the picture of the Kawere Boys was graciously provided by Doug). Very special thanks to Mr. Patrick Deya for his help with the interviews, for his translations of song lyrics, and for sharing his insights into Luo culture with me.