Space is the Place | Kat Ex / George Hadow + Ogoya Nengo & The Dodo Women’s Group

Wednesday, May 11, start concert 21:30, Entrance €12 / CvA €8.

Ogoya Nengo, born Anastasia Oluoch in 1943, in a small village called Magoya, near the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria. Hailing from a family of singers and orators, she soon joined their trade and practice as social messengers and commentators, commonly referred to by the locals as Dodo singers. Already in her early teens Anastasia had achieved much acclaim in her society and received the name “Ogoya Nengo” which means “The Priced One” at the early age of 13. Ogoya became the rave of the time, criss-crossing the region with their music, singing to great chiefs, warriors and colonial officers who became enraptured by her talent. Ogoya Nengo’s approach to Dodo, a genre which is in danger of vanishing, is a very personal one: Her timeless and mystical music is characterized by her powerful voice.

She is a legendary folk artist who has had an immense career spanning over three decades, but due to limited resources her music had remained in her region: This has changed a lot with the release of Ogoya Nengo’s international debut album “Rang’ala – New Recordings From Siaya County, Kenya” which had been produced in Summer 2013 by German experimental music mavericks Stefan Schneider and Sven Kacirek and came out in fall 2014 on London’s record label of taste, Honest Jon’s: Using nothing else than vocals and a bit of percussion this is a unfiltered declaration of the song as an universal language. Afterwards, Ogoya Nengo & The Dodo Women’s Group were invited to influential festivals such as Africolor in Paris, Le Guess Who? In Holland or or Poland’s leading open air extravaganza, OFF in Katowice, where this bunch of seasoned East African performers was greeted by thousands of kids who went absolutely ballistic!

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KAT EX / GEORGE HADOW