When Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon have quite finished plundering the Third World for more musicians to rob, people like Arthur Rathbone Pullen and his organisation, Faustuss are quietly recording African music as it really is; played in the villages of Kenya by Kenyans for Kenyans. With a bit of help these musicians might even get to reap the benefits of a global marketplace too.

Steal-Life - Tell us a little about what Faustuss is all about.
Arthur Rathbone Pullen - Faustuss is an organisation, the idea for which took root during a six-month expedition I undertook in Kenya from July to December 2005. The initial purpose of my visit to Kenya was to make recordings of the indigenous music that is fast disappearing in many parts of Kenya. I intended to keep the recordings as a means of preserving the music, and to donate them to institutions such as the National Museum in Nairobi for archiving and research. For me, they would be a source of further musical education, and potential inspiration for my own compositions.

These plans soon seemed relatively frugal, since it became quickly apparent that that the recording of this music for posterity was not necessary or particularly useful. Kenyan libraries and museum archives are well laden with audio and video recordings of a wide range of cultural music and practices, but what good does that music do when it is gathering dust on shelves in a grand old colonial basement? The only way to give this music a future is to create the means of forging a sustainable income through the music. In short, we aim to do this by recording and producing CDs for various artists across Kenya.

SL- What sparked your personal interest in Kenyan music?
ARP- My intentions to learn about and record Kenyan music germinated in 1999 when I visited Kenya on a family holiday. It was a typical tourist affair, involving an animal safari and a week on the beach. During that week on the beach, I met Borah Salim and Salim Mbui of the Duruma Dancers – a group of musicians who performed at our hotel. They taught me a few things about their traditional style – Sengenya, and invited me to spend the following day with them in their village. I was struck, not only by the complex beauty of the music, but by the way of life that the Durumas sometimes enjoyed, and sometimes endured. I promised that I would return one day in the future to learn more.

SL- What did you set out to achieve in Kenya?
ARP- It involved taking 38 of the musicians with whom I had made recordings in 2005 to perform at the Amakula Film Festival in Kampala (Uganda). The trip would be recorded and made into a documentary about music and culture in Kenya, giving exposure to the musicians and Faustuss as an organisation. I had met the organisers of the festival during the previous expedition, and they had told me that next years' theme would be ‘voices'. They had said they would be interested in involving any musicians I had worked with who had particularly distinctive voices, and the idea exploded into something much bigger and more ambitious. We hope that the documentary will provide people with an insight into real life in Kenya, in contrast to the somewhat shallow portrayal of life in Africa that is often portrayed in the media.

SL- What sort of reaction did you get when you turned up in a remote village with a load of hi-tech equipment?
ARP- Quite surprisingly, even the musicians from the most remote villages were relatively blasé about the equipment I was carrying. Whilst living conditions are mainly very basic, these are people who have seen the rapid proliferation of the mobile phone across the country in a matter of a few years. Even deep in Masai-land you will often see a Moran reach into his kikoi to answer a call. Far more notable was the reaction to hearing the recordings. I wish I could have had a picture of every single face as I played the music back on headphones. Normally an expression of sheer delight and wonder, followed by whooping and dancing as if the performance was still going on.

SL- Was it hard to persuade people of your philanthropic intentions?
ARP- Not this time. Everyone who came with us had worked with me before, and my return acted as a sort of consolidation of our relationships. On the way back from the festival we were welcomed as family might be into the various homesteads of all of the musicians, to the extent that I now feel like Kenya is my second home. During the first expedition it was sometimes quite different. As you can imagine there is a degree of suspicion upon the arrival of an mzungu (white man) who claims that he is going to record your music in order to help you make a living from it. In fact, some villages had already been sucked in by similar promises from other white men that had proved hollow. I think that in these cases, my disgust with such callous individuals was quite apparent and probably helped me obtain a position of trust.

SL- The melodies and rhythms you encountered were as varied as the instruments themselves, who was the most memorable music maker you met?
ARP- There are so many, all full of talent and charisma, but I think the prize has to go to Watai Mukonyi. He must be in his sixties, and is from the Kabras clan of the Luhya tribe in Western Province. Something of a local celebrity, Watai never puts his instrument (a one-stringed fiddle known as the shiriri) down. Throughout the trip he would just start playing spontaneously – at the bus stop, on the bus – everywhere. Everything about him is infectious from his broad toothless smile to his gargling drainpipe laugh, to his singing voice – which is frankly out of this world. Whenever he struck up, people around him would start clapping, singing, dancing. And he really loved the camera. Some of the footage we got of him performing is pure gold.

SL- Where do these musicians usually play?
ARP- It varies a great deal. The Durumas on the coast are lucky to benefit from the local tourist industry. They perform at hotels in the area and manage to make a reasonable living for some months of the year. Elsewhere the outlook is bleaker for musicians. They mainly play for their own enjoyment and to entertain family and friends. Occasionally a local politician, or other member of the local rich will pay for a small group of musicians to entertain at his/her house, but the rewards are meagre.

SL- What kind of Western music are these musicians exposed to?
ARP- Kenya is full of Western hip-hop, rap, R&B and reggae. The kids love it, especially in the cities, and Matatus (minibuses for public transport) often pump out anything from 50 Cent to Tamia with their chest-vibrating subs and ear-shattering tweeters. The Kenyan pop-scene is largely influenced by these styles, as well as gospel. There are other popular anomalies who seem to have made it big in Kenya – these include Elton John and Celine Dion. It always seems strange when you hear these albums blasting out across the Kenyan interior!

SL- What opportunities are there for musicians currently in Kenya?
ARP- It depends what area of the industry you are in. The pop-scene seems almost like an exaggerated version of our own throwaway culture. Artist after artist pumps out CD after CD, enjoying a shelf life of several months before they hit the rubbish heap. For me, the traditional music is far more interesting – though there are several hybrid styles (such as Ohangala in Nyanza) I came across that fuse the traditional with the modern for a really unique and very approachable experience. The government does a lot of talking about preserving the culture, but in practice the music is fading fast. Styles from different tribes are taught nationwide in schools, but this results in a watered down appropriation of the original. In Taita for example, there used to exist as many as 15 individual styles specific to the tribe. There are only really three remaining now, the rest having died with the ancestors.

SL- Your intention is not to merely archive the music but to broaden accessibility to it. How do you hope to achieve this?
ARP- We will be marketing the albums we recorded both here in the UK, and in Kenya. It is our intention to find mainstream distributors who will stock the CDs. One of the most important factors is to revive interest in Kenya – to do this we also need a means of selling cassettes cheaply, since few Kenyans own CD players. Eventually we hope to sell the music worldwide, and are planning to arrange tours for the musicians when it becomes financially viable.

SL- What was the most memorable part of the trip for you?
ARP- Dancing for several hours to the Taita's music at the festival. Their performance was earth-shattering and it seemed that everyone in the place was completely drawn in to the aggressive pounding rhythms of the drums. It was at that point that I realised that the whole trip had been a real success.

SL- Where next?
ARP- We are balancing our work in Kenya with the UK studio. There is a lot of work to do recording and promoting artists here in the UK and that is our main source of income at this stage (the Kenyan side relies on a very generous royalties system whereby 40% of profits from CD sales goes to the artists, 45% goes to projects in their local communities, and 15% comes back to the organisation to fund future projects). In the long term we aim to expand as a label, making recordings and promoting music worldwide. It is high time that much of this music gets the recognition it deserves without exploiting the musicians who create it.

Our next major project is a festival in Kibera (Africa's largest slum, in the Kenyan capital Nairobi). The event will be held not only as a cultural celebration and means of showcasing new films/arts etc - it will be a demonstration, a peaceful uprising, and something that will bring at least one important issue to the eyes and ears of the international media: the fact that Kibera - home to the working force that keeps Nairobi alive, and also home to some of the poorest people in Kenya,is owned by some of Kenya's richest. Millions of people are paying rent to these shameless men for the privilege of living in conditions that in some cases make a complete mockery of human rights and decency. This will be a festival by the people of Kibera for the people of Kibera. The proposed date is 5-12 December 2007.

SL- If someone wanted to hear more of this kind of music, where would you recommend that they should look?

ARP- www.faustuss.com

There are pages that allow the public to listen to samples from each of the CDs that we have completed so far. CDs will soon be available for sale online, at which point they will also go on sale in selected stores nationwide. Our news page will tell you all about it.