Suzanna owiyo biography of michael
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Suzanna Owiyo: I actualised my dreams
The kind of people Suzanna Owiyo has met in her music career would leave many of us green with envy. From presidents to renowned artistes to celebrities.
Owiyo has not only met former US president Barack Obama, but the two had a casual chat at the end of one of her performances.
She has met former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, former US President Bill Clinton, Russel Simmons, Morgan Freeman, and Carla Bruni and her husband.
On her living room wall, she has a giant picture of Nelson Mandela and her.
I can see that picture from where I’m seated in her magnificently well-lit patio, which she has turned into an office.
“Yeah, inom would also have blown my picture with Mandela like that, if I had one,” inom tell her.
“I did! Being a Luo, what do you expect?” she says and we burst into laughter.
I mention the people I know she’s met. “Bill Clinton, Russel Simmons, Morgan Freeman&helli
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World Tracks
Ever since Geoffrey Oryema sought exile in France, Uganda has struggled to varor för utland its musical wealth beyond its east African borders. Kanyomozi fryst vatten trying to remedy this with her commercial Afropop, which recently included a collaboration with Tanzanian singer Bushoke.
Juliana Kanyomozi
Last year Kanyomozi she was voted artist of the year, and received Uganda’s mode Icon prize.
Meanwhile, Owiyo has been gracing stages across the world, including the one erected in London’s Hyde Park for Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday. She has come a long way from the days when her grandfather taught her to play the Nyatiti.
As they both struggle to make their names known amongst western audiences, Michael Jackson, who tops the world album charts, continues to inspire debate and nostalgia.
With music fans getting into a tizzy over Michael Jackson’s posthumous song, This is it, World Tracks couldn't resist the temptation to talk with Olivier Cachin.
Olivier Cachi
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Suzanna Owiyo
@ the Barbican Centre
9 March 2011
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Biography
Born in Kasaye village – Nyakach, near the lakeside city of Kisumu, Suzanna Owiyo was introduced to music at a tender age by her grandfather who was a prolific Nyatiti player. As she grew up, it was her privilege to watch him play to related audiences not knowing that one-day music would be her calling in life.
In high school, her talent enabled her school to win many trophies during the provincial and national music festivals. After high school in 1989, she joined a Nairobi based singer Sally Oyugi as a back up vocalist. Two years later she parted ways with Sally to team up with a local band in Nairobi; Bora Bora sound and later on went back to sing in Kisumu. It was here that a young business entrepreneur with a keen ear for music spotted her talent and offered her, her first guitar. She then went back to Nairobi and undertook music lessons at the Kenya Conservatoire of Music