Kenyan singer (1956?2019)
Ayub Ogada
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Birth name
| Job Seda
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Born
| 1956
(
1956
)
Mombasa
, Kenya
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Died
| (aged 63)
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Genres
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Occupation(s)
| Singer, songwriter, musician, actor
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Years active
| 1979?2019
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Labels
| Real World Records
Long Tale Recordings
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Website
| ayubogada
.com
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Musical artist
Job Seda
(1956 ? 1 February 2019),
[1]
better known as
Ayub Ogada
, was a Kenyan singer. He was a singer favoring the
nyatiti
(an eight-stringed lyre with its origins credited to the
Luo
, a tribe in Nyanza Kenya) as his characteristic instrument. His music is known to have a natural feel to it, having songs of birds, the calls of animals and the sounds of children playing in the background.
[2]
Ayub Ogada was also an actor landing major roles in films including the Academy Award-winning
Out of Africa
(1985) and
Kitchen Toto
(1987).
Biography
[
edit
]
Ayub Ogada was born in 1956 in
Mombasa
, Kenya. He is a descendant of the
Luo people
of Nyanza Kenya and was influenced by their musical heritage by his parents who were musicians. They performed Luo music to Kenyan and US audiences. Ayub’s experience of travelling with his parents to the US and his exposure to both western and African cultures had a profound effect on his music and outlook.
[3]
While at school in Kenya, Ayub played various instruments in bands and embraced both traditional and modern music. In 1979, after leaving school, he co-founded the African Heritage Band, fusing traditional music with the sounds of rock and soul that Ogada and his bandmates heard regularly on the radio.
In 1986, Ayub set his sights on the
UK
and traveled to London clutching his Luo
nyatiti
(an eight-string traditional
lyre
). He scraped a living by busking on the city’s streets and the
London
underground. In 1988, he was approached and asked to play at
Peter Gabriel
’s
WOMAD Festival
in
Cornwall
. His breakthrough came there. Perchance a band cancelled and Ayub’s ten-minute slot stretched to a full set. Among the won over fans that day was Peter Gabriel himself.
Ayub was invited to take part in one of the recording weeks at Peter Gabriel’s
Real World Studios
in
Wiltshire
. In 1992 he sang backing vocals on Peter Gabriel’s Track Digging in the Dirt together with
Peter Hammill
and
Richard MacPhail
.
[4]
In 1993, he recorded his first album
En Mana Kuoyo (Just Sand)
at the studio and he toured extensively with Peter Gabriel and WOMAD.
In 1998, Ayub started working with
Giovanni Amighetti
and
Helge Andreas Norbakken
on the Salimie project. Playing several gigs including a concert in
Rome
in front of the
Roman Colosseum
for
FAO
and recording the
Tanguru
album
[5]
for Intuition.
Ayub’s music is on the soundtracks of films such as
I Dreamed of Africa
(2000),
The Constant Gardener
(2005),
Samsara
(2011) and
The Good Lie
(2014). His music was also used in the soundtrack for
Ewan McGregor
and
Charlie Boorman
’s
BBC
series'
Long Way Round
and
Long Way Down
as well as
NBC
's short-lived action drama series,
The Philanthropist
.
Ayub has also acted under his birth name, Job Seda. He played
Robert Redford
's
Maasai
warrior assistant in
Out of Africa
(1985) and also starred in
The Kitchen Toto
(1987).
[6]
"Kothbiro", was included in a sequence, and in the soundtrack of the Mexican film "La Habitacion Azul", 2002. This song also features as one of the tracks in the 2012 Documentary Feature by
Ron Fricke
"Samsara".
[7]
In July 2005, Ayub Ogada performed at the
Live 8
concert Eden Project as the opening act with his band, Union Nowhere. They released the album
Tanguru
in 2007, the year Ayub moved back to Kenya.
In 2012, the English musician
Trevor Warren
went to Kenya to visit Ayub. Together with the Kenyan musician and engineer Isaac Gem, they composed and recorded the album
Kodhi
(meaning seed in Luo).
Kodhi: Trevor Warren's Adventures with Ayub Ogada
was released on Long Tale Recordings on 20 April 2015. Ayub was also included in the making of
Queen Elizabeth II
's diamond jubilee song which was played by the
Commonwealth
band and
Gary Barlow
and
Andrew Lloyd Webber
directed it.
[8]
Following Ayub's death in 2019, producer and composer
Trevor Warren
compiled and produced the album
Omera: The Further Adventures of Trevor Warren with Ayub Ogada
from unused recordings, mostly made during the sessions for
Kodhi
. A double album, it includes performances from
Hossam Ramzy
,
Dudley Phillips
,
Toby Shippey
and Marco Megido. Disc two contains 're-imaginings' of various pieces by
Count Dubulah
/
Dub Colossus
,
Peter Chilvers
, Trevor Warren,
Bernard O'Neill
, and
Oren Kaplan
.
[9]
He is credited on the
Kanye West
album
Ye
as a co-songwriter of the track "
Yikes
".
He died in February 2019, at the age of 63.
[10]
Discography
[
edit
]
Albums
[
edit
]
- 1993:
En Mana Kuoyo
- 1998:
Tanguru
- 2015:
Kodhi: Trevor Warren's Adventures with Ayub Ogada
- 2022:
Omera: The Further Adventures of Trevor Warren with Ayub Ogada
Singles
[
edit
]
- 2005: "Dicholo"
- 1993: "Koth Biro" was featured on the soundtrack of the movie
The Constant Gardener
, which was a political thriller shot in Kenyan location.
[11]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
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]
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International
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National
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Artists
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