KENDO: Mentees pay tribute to benga legend Ramogi

A humbling event is afoot in Weta-Kamwala, 15km from Kendu Bay, a small town with a big name in Homa Bay County. Students of the late benga icon George Ramogi are celebrating their mentor in a grand show of gratitude.

Gratitude finds a practical meaning in the initiative of musicians Ramogi mentored between 1962, when he made his first recording, and 1997 when he died. 

Kendu Bay’s renown rode on the back of a musical experience of four decades. Ramogi was the architect of the town’s fame, as a regional leisure hub, with generous mention of Kendu Bay in some of his songs.

Kendu Bay’s entertainment catchment then covered Uganda, and Tanzania, through Serare, into the Luo-speaking Shirati community of the late Daniel Owino Misiani, across the border to the south.

During the years Ramogi ruled the benga scene, he operated under brand band names such as Kendu Sweet Band, Luo Sweet Band, Continental Kilo Jazz Band, CK Jazz, and CK Dumbe Dumbe. 

Under the George Ramogi Foundation, his students, who are accomplished artistes, are building a mausoleum for their teacher. A cultural centre, a music artefact museum, a music school and a hotel are planned in the Ramogi family homestead in Karachuonyo. The benga museum will be a boost to cultural tourism in Homa Bay county.

Early this month, several bands, fans, politicians, celebrities and clergy gathered in Wangchieng’ ward of Rachuonyo North subcounty, to launch the centre. The facility is the first of its kind in memory of a musician, whose reputation as a soft benga and rumba star is legendary.

Ramogi’s love songs weren’t vulgar. They were mature, decent, sober, respectful and appropriate for any audience and company. Ramogi insisted on finesse, with every song that passed through him, and would carry the signature of his brand. 

Ramogi promoted family values. Family life was at the core of his art. A band member had to marry to be eligible to enlist in his troupe. They also had to be of good conduct.

Ramogi also loved and supported education. ‘Omogi Wuod Weta (son of Weta village)’ was also an early champion of girl-child education. The best-known compositions in this category include a song in praise of Alice Beldina Anyango and My Best Wishes to Conny. 

Conny was a student at Asumbi Girls National School. This was a generation when students were more mature and older than they are now. The song is still a signature tune during public meetings at Asumbi, the only national school for girls in Homa Bay. 

Students, parents and teachers respond favourably whenever the song is played during school functions. It’s more like the school’s anthem.

Ramogi is also remembered for history and event-based songs, such as Rapar Tom Mboya and Argwings Kodhek Onindo of 1969. Ramogi’s fans still shed tears when the memorial songs for Argwings Kodhek and Tom Mboya are played. The sombre lyrics show the sobriety of their profoundly philosophical author.

Kodhek was a pioneer counsel for pre-independent freedom fighters and a key plank of the founding regime of President Jomo Kenyatta. Tom Mboya, a founding minister in the Jomo Kenyatta regime, was assassinated on July 5, 1969, hours after arrival from an official meeting in Addis Ababa. 

Other songs in the memorial genre include Ajali Ya Sondu (1968) and Rapar Janam (1965). Many travellers died in a lorry accident on River Sondu and in a steamer accident in Lake Victoria. 

The benga legend made his first recording, Ouko Wuod Kusa in 1962.

Ramogi’s mentee, Jim Likembe Kopondo, immortalises the legend in Rapar George Ramogi of 1997. The dirge, a classic tune, still evokes emotions 26 years after the song was composed.

Tom Kodiyo, Paul Orwa Jasolo and Jim Likembe, three of the most visible students of the benga and rumba legend, are demonstrating the humbling power of gratitude.  

The three count among the many musicians who passed through Ramogi’s musical foundry. They fondly call Ramogi the ‘professor of music’, whose repertoire defined, refined and still influences soft benga lyrics. 

Ramogi was a perfectionist who composed futuristic songs. Some of the Ramogi classics are still as fresh now, and danceable, as they were in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and the 1990s when entertainment technology was young.

The lyrics are still ‘twisty’ during classy receptions and parties, about 50 years after the ‘bell bottom’ age.

Gratitude, as Melody Beattie, an American author of self-help books says, makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. 

Kodiyo, Likembe and others still know Ramogi minted them. They know how the tortoise found its way to the top of the table.

University journalism lecturer and climate change local actions advocate