Håkan Lidbo: Meet the Swedish innovator who created technology for Kenyans to enjoy traditional music!

Kenyans no longer have to wait for the next state event or national holiday to listen to their favorite traditional instruments! All thanks to Håkan Lidbo, a Swedish music producer and innovator, who explores the intersection between art, music, science, games, technology, and society.

Håkan built a new technology from Sweden called Music Sample Bar, which was recently launched at the Swedish Embassy in Nairobi. The Sample Bar is the first one in Africa and currently, there are only two at the Swedish Museum of Performing Arts in Stockholm, Sweden.

Håkan Lidbo is a Swedish music producer and innovator.

So how did this come to be?

Speaking exclusively to Ambitious.Africa, Håkan revealed that he has been working on such innovations for a while now.

“I’m currently based in a space where there are many engineers and artists where we collaborate and are currently bringing empty spaces to life. We make a lot of innovations for museums and Kenya was the second country we did this for,” he said.

Håkan worked on the Kenyan project together with Daniel Muhuni, a musician documenting and learning musical cultures on the brink of extinction.

“I met Daniel through a friend, Preben Wik who is CEO at Interaction Action and co-founder Furhat Robotics. We realized that the problem in museums is that they cater to older people but younger people might not be interested. So we decided to find ways to document and make older generation instruments interesting and keep the original sound.”

Håkan then invited Daniel to Sweden and together shaped the project. They then got a grant and met Swedish Embassy officials in Nairobi who agreed to host the premiere. 

Through this project, which also involved Peter Walala and Preben Wik’s wife Hillen Helm, Håkan is now in touch with Bomas of Kenya. Bomas is a cultural center that hosts a rich diversity of Kenyan traditional music and dance through daily cultural performances.

“We are aware that they want to build a cultural center representing the eight regions in Kenya. We are applying for more funding and hopeful it will happen,” he said.

The collaboration journey

Håkan was initially supposed to travel to Kenya for the work together with his colleague but did not due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Daniel Muhuni instead came over to Sweden with some instruments to record the demo. 

“This project involved editing and creating a visual interface and has an element of carpentry where we were using optical visual tracking objects. Then there is the historical aspect of it where we document the artists playing instruments,” said Håkan adding that some of the musical instruments involved are played by older people and when they die it risks being extinct: “My thinking is that this can profit Kenya in terms of tourism. Culture heritage may seem irrelevant but if these values are lost then people would lose their identity.”

Kenyan music players playing traditional instruments.

Challenges?

While Håkan could not travel to Kenya and involve more artists in these projects, he is thankful that most of it went smoothly. 

“Internet interruptions during communication were the only issue but I was expecting more difficulties. I have to say it was much easier as people are used to communicating online and maybe it would have been different if it wasn’t for the pandemic teaching us this,” said the former recording artist who is also looking to partner with other African countries. He is already in talks with a music industry stakeholder in Nigeria.

Håkan said that this project opened his eyes to learn more about Kenyan culture. While most of the music he has created in the past involves hitting the right keys, Kenyan traditional music is more about storytelling.

“A discussion with Bomas taught me that different instruments cannot be brought together due to culture clash as they come from totally different communities and were played during certain occasions,” said the innovator who is currently working on the Swedish Expo 2021 in Dubai. 

How does the sample bar work?

A sample bar is made of a table with four screens. In there are two small screens; one on the left and another on the right and two the size of 32-inch TV screens - one in the middle on the table and another display screen facing the player of the music, that shows how the sound effects move.

Then there are cubes, which when placed on the middle screen produce the sound of that instrument. Inside the table are infrared lights with screens that read the cubes named with music, with QR Codes below them.

It has a flash disk input, where you can save the music, go play it elsewhere. It also has headphones so that in case there will be eight bars of different regions in a museum room, there will be no interruption. 

By: Cate Mukei