By TONY MOCHAMA

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Since his death in 2019, the Alliance Francaise in Nairobi hosts hundreds of people for the annual Ayub Ogada tribute concert. The past two concerts have attracted big Nyatiti players and this year was not different.

This year’s concert was held on March 2, and being the third edition, Makadem, Ogada’s student, paid tribute to the regional legend by playing his music. Other Nyatiti performers included Judith Bwire, Atisana, Gabriel Wuod Akonya and the youngest Nyatiti player Kent Mugenda Ja Siaya as well as Olith Ratego.

The event, held under the balmy evening sky at the French Cultural Centre's garden, was an eclectic fusion of ethnic sounds and modern professional mix of both music and folks in attendance, all listening to the Nyatiti strings and voices. Makadem did not disappoint and his performance got a few people on their feet dancing.

These musicians brought out the emotions to the event as expected by fusing the Nyatiti sound with other instruments for an urban sound.

Ketebul Music founder Tabu Osusa said that Ogada often said perhaps only in jest that after his death, ''nobody who hasn’t earned it should try and play my music.’’

Makadem clearly had earned it and as Nigerian saying goes, “when a child has washed its hands, he is now ready to sit at the table and eat with the elders.’’

Ogada, a legendary Nyatiti player, a teacher and actor died in February 2019, aged 63. He belonged to the early Ohangla musicians in Kenya who took the Nyatiti and Ohangla to the global stage.

He was a co-founder of the African Heritage Band in 1979, popular for fusing traditional music sounds with rock and soul. As a young man in the United Kingdom, he played at big gigs in the 1980s including at Peter Gabriel's Womad Festival in Cornwall, England and later performed at a concert at the Colosseum in Rome in 1998.

He was also part of the making of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee song and was also credited as a co-songwriter of Yikes on Kanye West's Ye album.

The Nyatiti is an eight-stringed music instrument of the Luo community of western Kenya used in the Ohangla music, giving it its upbeat danceable beat.

For years, these instruments have been part of the rich Ohangla music culture. But Ohangla is not only a source of entertainment for the Luos, it was also played, albeit in its softer, more somber version, as Sigweya or dirge during funerals.

Ogada recorded several Ohangla msic and his first album, En mana Kuoyo (It's just sand in Dholuo) was recorded in 1993 and in 1998, he recorded Tang'uru (be vigilant in Dholuo).

His most famous single, Koth Biro was featured as a soundtrack in the movie The Constant Gardener and later his songs were featured in I Dreamed of Africa, Samsara and The Good Lie and other film and television shows.

He also acted in Out of Africa, playing a Maasai warrior, assistant to Robert Redford. He later starred in The Kitchen Toto.