Tabu Osusa (born 21 July 1954) is a Kenyan author and music producer, and the founder of ''Ketebul Music''.

Career

In 1974 Osusa decided to travel the

DRC The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

then

Zaire Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...

, settling in

Barumbu Barumbu is a municipality (''commune'') in the Lukunga district of Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is situated in the north of Kinshasa, south of Gombe and the Boulevard du 30 Juin. Barumbu is historically ...

Kinshasa where he was first introduced to music by the Kenyan saxophonist Ben Nicholas. Osusa returned to Kenya in 1977 and briefly joined the band ''Les Kinois''. Since then, Osusa has been a composer, recording artist, songwriter, promoter, band manager and producer. In 2007, Tabu Osusa founded ''Ketebul Music''. He is the acting director of the organisation, assisted by some people with varied knowledge and skills in the wider field of arts and culture. The chairman of ''Ketebul Music'' is the kenyan cartoonist

Maddo Paul Kelemba (born 26 June 1962, in Nairobi), is a Kenyan self-taught comic strip artist and caricaturist. He uses Maddo as a pen-name which was inspired by Mad Magazine of New-York. Career After completing his education, Paul Kelemba started of ...

. In 2014, Tabu Osusa with Ketebul Music was appointed by the

Smithsonian Folkways Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was fou ...

to select artists and co-produce the albume ''African Rhythms: Songs from Kenya'' Tabu Osusa was the lead author of ''Shades of Benga: The Story of Popular Music In Kenya 1946-2016''. The book published in August 2017 traces the origins of Kenya's popular music to the end of the Second World War to date. In 2016 he was nominated Five Music Rights Champion by the

International Music Council The International Music Council (IMC) was created in 1949 as UNESCO's advisory body on matters of music. It is based at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris, France, where it functions as an independent international non-governmental organization. Its p ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Osusa, Tabu 1954 births Kenyan record producers People from Nyanza Province Kenyan company founders Living people