Honkytonk Kenya - Africa's home of country music
Kenya has become the unlikely home of a growing country music scene, possibly the biggest in Africa, as testified by the thousands line-dancing in a field in the capital Nairobi this weekend for International Cowboys and Cowgirls Day.
The festival crowd went wild for the king of the local country scene, "Sir Elvis" Otieno, as his deep baritone belted out classics like "Take Me Home, Country Roads" mixed with newer hits like "Down to the Honkytonk".
Sir Elvis's parents named him after another musical monarch who died a few months before he was born in 1977, and then raised him on a diet of country legends like Jim Reeves and Alan Jackson.
"When I started out it was a very tiny genre" in Kenya, he told AFP at the festival. "It's a dream come true to see a crowd like this today."
AFP | Fredrik Lerneryd
There are links, he said, to local traditions, particularly the story-telling music of the Kikuyu tribe known as Mugithi.
"Kikuyu folk music has the same kind of language, they draw from each other quite a bit," said Sir Elvis. "It's really crazy -- so many thousands of miles apart, but the messaging is the same."
- 'Life, love, hate, forgiveness' -
Anne Anene still remembers the song that turned her into a country music fan: Dolly Parton's "Do I Ever Cross Your Mind?".
"Her songs always speak to me because they always have deep messages, and they usually tell a story of what I go through," said Anene, a customer service representative for a health insurance firm.
"I've always hoped to go to Texas or Nashville one day," she added. "I'd like to visit the ranches, I like horse riding, I like the ranch kind of life -- the quiet, the calm."
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