Katoi wa tabaka and the Mijikenda Jazz Band

Katoi wa tabaka & The Mijikenda jazz band
Katoi wa tabaka is a singer song writer from malindi who fuses traditional coastal music,especially mijikenda music with soul and jazz.His musical journey started early in life when he joined his primary school drama and music club.This proceeded into highschool,a period when the hiphop rap scene was active in Kenya and he joined the tabaka rap crew in malindi.when later he moved to Europe for further studies he continued with his passion in music.this is where he interacted with west African musicians who used to do traditional music.he joined a group of djembe' percussionists from Dakar who were also students with him in Udine, north Italy and he used to rap with them when they toured local joints in udine, Trieste and Venice the nearby towns to the university. When he came back to kenya, he had a very different view on music,unlike how he had left the country earlier.he continued doing hiphop rap but his journey into traditional fusion had started with the experience with the Senegalese. In 2013,he joined the malindi district cultural association, a body of culture in malindi whose aim is to identify,conserve,and preserve culture.katoi started research on traditional mijikenda music,and eventually started fusing it with the world musical Knowledge he had learnt from all over the world.He brought together a team of live mordern music instrumentalists,traditional instrumentalists and other musicians and producers and formed the mijikenda jazz band.
Mijikenda jazz band now consists of a keyboard player,bass guitar, percussionist,a lady singer and percussion player and katoi wa tabaka as the lead vocalist and Gunda flute player.
The band is based in malindi where they play in the various hotels.Their dream is to get onto platforms that will challenge them to grow into international world music class.
Mijikenda jazz band was the opening band for the Churchill show in malindi.it also was the main band for the just concluded mekatilili wa menza cultural festival.