Music is beautiful. It is the language of the heart. It is the bridge between heaven and earth. The connection of all men. It needs nothing but willingness, And readiness to hear it. It is the language of life. It brings newness, fullness and peace to all. Abbi’s music style has been termed afro-jazz or afro-fusion and has been growing in popularity around the country and abroad, as it contains the rare ethnic sounds and rhythms of Kenyan people’s traditional music meeting the world influences today. Simply, it is “Kikwetu†music.
Kikwetu is a Swahili word which means “our culture, our styleâ€.
With globalization and the world coming together, Abbi uses his traditional language and rhythms to cUnderstanding, harmony and peaceful co-existence, independentof our different cultures and backgrounds are the major themes in this music.ontribute to the new world-culture. Globalization is not just about standardizing, but also about contributing with as much diversity as possible, appreciating the best of every beat of every culture and creating a new beautiful global sound. This is why the music has flavors of salsa, reggae, rock, samba and even other rhythms from the African continent, yet not loosing its Kenyan identity.
The vision of a world-culture is also reflected in the fusion of contemporary and traditional instruments such as zeze (Tanzania), accordion (France), boum boums (Kenya), djembe(West Africa), marimba (Africa), violin (Europe), flute (African & European), sax, drums, guitar and keyboard.
Abbi says, “The drum reminds me of my roots, the melody of my peopleâ€. One of the strongest aspects of his music is live performances which allow him to connect and interact with different audiences making each show unique.
Along the lines of fusing instruments and cultures, Abbi experiments by uniting different languages such as Luhya, Kiswahili, French, Gujarati, Luo, English, Arabic, Hebrew, and out of all this, creating an abstract language resulting in a new unique expression of life. “I know love to be the force of life that shapes the future and strings together our purposes", he concludes. Some of his past performances include tours with The Boyz later known as Safari, in 1993 when he started off his career as gospel a cappella singer with the band, tours through the UK in 2000, tours through Germany with Achieng’ Abura from 1996 to 200.
Abbi also performed as Achieng’ Abura's backup vocalist during her tours throughout Kenya and in Spain.
In 2003 Abbi was voted best male artist and most promising artist at the Kisima awards in Kenya. In 2004,Abbi collaborated with Luigi Cinque,renowned Italian world music composer, together with Mercy Myra and Emanu Uzele at the Italian Cultural Center in Nairobi. In July 2006, Abbi and Kikwetu were invited to play at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands. “Muduniaâ€, released in 2003 was Abbi's first album in an Afro-Fusion style, which lead to the formation of the group Abbi & Kikwetu. “Nandwa†was recorded during the Mundial Tour in 2004 in the Netherlands.
A third album (No title yet) to be released soon is a solo album Abbi has been working on since 2004, which has seen him collaborate with numerous artists from Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Norway, Holland, India, Congo, England and France.
SOURCE: showbizeastafrica.com/
