Looking back at the Arts, Music and Festivals of 2014
2014 has rolled its carpet, or rather we have reached the end of the carpet and are looking back for that last goodbye kiss. While reminiscing, it’s hard to ignore the creative people who lost several strands of hair while burning tons and tons of midnight oil to make life better.
From Paul Onditi’s “Pipes that Bind” to Kuona Trust’s “Art Walk”, visual artists did great things in 2014. And not only artists. Disruptors, designers from different fields who we identified as changing the way we interact with our city for the better, worked tirelessly throughout the year to come up with innovative solutions to our everyday problems and challenges. Thus we find the likes of Mark Kaigwa, who through his company Nendo, summarized our social life in the 24 letters of the alphabet under the title of the AtoZ of KOT; Kamau Gachigi a game changing engineer who is working to create products with local solutions to local problems; Rampelberg Designs, that make our furniture move with the times and Teddy Kinyanjui, the mind behind the Cookswell Jikos that are revolutionizing the way we barbecue our meat.
Then there were filmmakers like Wanuri Kahiu and Jimmy Chuchu who not only made films, but looked into the future and showed us the present. And let’s not forget the gamers who entertained us with apps like Ma3 Racer or the techies who with Kytabu, set out to making reading as easy as swallowing saliva.
Festivals have become part of our lives and Sean Ross, with his two connected events RVF and Fambula, has revolutionized the way we interact with weekend festivals. Who knew that the funnest part of the party was during the day? After their wicked party at Tiwi in Kilifi for NYE, Muthurukishion, the master of fusion festivals, will be having a residency in town to serve you more fusion of Benga and music from around East Africa. Sondeka put up one of the best festivals this year and, as organiser Liz Kiptum says, “next year will be bigger with more stages and platforms, creative showcases from around the whole of East Africa, fashion designers and digital installations to enhance the attendee experience at the Festival.”
UPLive keeps on moving up and getting livelier and hardly a week passes without an email asking us when the next one will be. To be honest we’d rather surprise you when the time comes, so keep on watching this space, online and off. The 48 Hour Film Project was obviously a huge adrenaline rush for all those involved, as was made painfully obvious to those of us who were not involved by the excitement that surrounded our team, the Bas Crew, in the weeks preceding and following the competition. Luckily for us, the Bas Crew went on to win the Best Writing category, or we fear what could have happened to the moods of all those involved.
Beisdes the festivals and events, there are musicians and artists to definitely look out for in 2015. If you don’t know Andrew Mwini, he was the winner of Absolut Art Transformation. There, his piece captivated everyone from ordinary drunkards to professional art critics and UP is predicts this young artist’s work will continue to make waves in the coming year.
Yellow Light Machine being the youngest band both in existence and in ages of the members in the mainstream festival circuits, is likely to go international in 2015. Their first album recorded live by Joost Kappe of Beware Studios in Nanyuki, has received good global reviews so you wait and see.
Lastly, Kalamashaka, the very pioneers of Kenyan Hip Hop, made a comeback in the last months of the year. The world had better prepare for the real godfathers of Kenyan Hip Hop.
