Kenya Special

In the spirit of moving on from the music of 2016, I spent a lot of my downtime in Amsterdam seeking out albums from literally any other year. One of the albums I tried to track down was by a late-1970s Kenyan group called Gatanga Boys Band. I'd first heard them on a compilation I'd bought years ago called Kenya Special; a collection of rare, archived Kenyan rock music, that I'd clearly bought in order to feel like I'd moved to Kenya after all and still believed in the Bible. Kenya Special featured two outstanding songs by Gatanga Boys Band but I couldn't find anything else by them anywhere online. I whinged to Chris all day long about how much I desperately wanted a Gatanga Boys Band album and he advised me to talk to his housemate who conveniently owned a record store specialising in East African music. The conversation I had with his housemate went like this:

'Do you know where I can find an album by Gatanga Boys Band?'

'How have you heard of Gatanga Boys Band?'

'I've got two of their songs on a compilation' 

'Was it called Kenya Special?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, cool, I actually compiled and released that album myself.'

'What?'

'I'm afraid you can't buy anything else by them, those two songs are all there is, but we did release a second Kenya Special album if you'd like that instead?'

'Yes please, I'd like that a lot.'

*He hands me a vinyl copy of Kenya Special, Vol. 2*

- James Acaster, Perfect Sound Whatever, London, 2019, p.264-5.

[The tracks in question are Wendo Ti Mbia and Keep Change Kairitu]