Them Mushrooms band.

August always marks the start of the peak music buying season. This is largely driven by the holiday season and the increase in overseas visitors.

Evidently, this season has a lot more product on both the contemporary Kenyan music and the traditional genre, which is mostly due to the increased focus on that market, both for domestic and foreign market.

A guide to contemporary music naturally starts with the Safari Sounds album Best of African Songs which is now available on compact discs. Issued in the early 1980s, the recording is undoubtedly Kenya’s biggest selling product for the export market and has been an all-time favourite for Kenyans and tourists alike.

Among the favourite tracks is the group’s cover version of Them Mushrooms’ international hit Jambo Bwana, previously covered by Boney M and other overseas artistes. The album also has a version of Malaika - Kenya’s first international hit song.

A second edition of this album titled Best of African Songs Volume Two is also available and, like its forerunner, features renditions of past songs. All the songs in this album are in Kiswahili with a strong Western pop feel in their structure. This makes them more appealing to the crossover market.

From more recent times is Them Mushrooms’ Wazee Wa Kazi series which has revived dozens of Kenyan recordings from the early 1960s. This is especially recommended to those who would like a taste of original Kenyan music in this vibrant era without traces of Western pop.

The recent overseas success of the CD Kenya Dance has revived interest in the songs carried in the compilation. All are in their original 1970s recording. They represent the contemporary urban music of their era, which was influenced by the Dholuo benga of the Lake Victoria region and the then booming Tanzanian music.

The inclusion of the hit Sina Makosa by Simba Wanyika, who settled in Kenya in the early 1970s from their native Tanzania offers a fine comparison of how urban music from the two countries was intertwined.

For acapella music, Missa Luba by Muungano National Choir is also a gem for his broad representation of Kenyan traditional music and on the evolution of African folk music.

Produced by Phillips Classics, the high quality recording puts it at level with other international recordings without compromising the vibrant Africanness in atmosphere and in performance. It highlights the use of traditional shakers, notably the kayamba, in providing the beat in African folk music.

There is a video to go along with the CD for those who prefer the audio/visual effect. The series has been big hit with Kenyan market and is bound to appeal to tourists looking for hard gritty music from this country.

This year has seen a flood of new CDs from various groups. This should interest collectors of Kenyan music. Kayamba Afrika’s CD is also a good representation of Kenyan music and features a selection of folk songs drawn from all over the country.

Not to alienate those who prefer music with instrumentation, the six-piece group has added sparse instrumentation on songs on one side, while the rest are acapella although clearly with contemporary vocal harmonies.

For those who are inclined to aesthetics, however, a reissue of Folk Songs From East Africa supervised by Dr George Zenoga Zake, who is undoubtedly one of the best known musicologists from East Africa, is a must-buy for collectors of folk music.

It carries songs as sang in various communities in the region, giving them an air of the original not heard in re-recordings on the same. The nuances are particularly infectious because they are performed by traditional groups comprising people who grew up dancing and singing to the same songs.

Still on that genre, there is a recently released CD from veteran musician Joseph Kamaru featuring a collection of folk songs from East Africa as performed in their original form. Like the Zake collection, this new release by Kamaru retains the songs in their original form.

One point though is the dominance of coastal Giriama songs on this set, which is probably to affirm the community’s rich music culture and singing tradition.

Meanwhile, Maasai folk songs have been captured in a similarly titled recording issued recently by Tamasha Productions. This is the first of a kind and carries mainly chants by the Maasai and not conventional singing.

This is the cassette production dedicated to Maasai music. However, other songs can be found on compilation recordings. Among the Maa communities, the Samburu are probably the most widely represented on compilation recordings featuring Kenyan folk songs. This is a compliment to their rich music endowment among the pastoralist communities in Kenya.

Collectors of this genre of music may also be interested in music from Nyanza Province, especially from the Dholuo community, who are well known for their use of one-string bow-like traditional cello known as urutu and the harp-like nyatiti. The latter resembles the kora of West Africa.

The popularity of Dholuo music has inspired several recordings either as instrumental or as accompanied music and are available mostly on cassette. The recordings are raw and are not as refined as one would wish them to be because they were done before the arrival of the digital technology. All the same, the spirit of the music is vibrant and overally captivating.

Like most other recordings of folk music, the songs are drawn from rituals ranging from initiations, weddings to burial ceremonies.

For those inclined to trends in hip hop music, there are several recordings in this vein all available on CD format. Many are using Kiswahili language but the music arrangement is largely influenced by American music.