Nairobi Half Life original score Xaver von Treyer

After the critical acclaim of the soundtrack to the african/british/german movie Soul Boy the film production team around Tom Tykwer asked Xaver von Treyer to score the music for their follow up project Nairobi Half Life.

In 2010 he went to Kenya to record local instruments like the Obokano and Nyatiti and to get a vibe of the local music scene, where genge (a mixture of Dancehall and Hip Hop with Swahili singing and rapping) and reggae are omnipresent, even on public transportation like Matatus (a minivan packed with people and Kingston-like soundsystems). People drive to work with blasting good vibe music every day, the drivers are also the DJs and get yelled or cheered at depending on the popularity of the song. Local producer Eric Musyoka (also known as Kenya's Dr. Dre) helped Xaver connecting witn the right people and even provided some sampled material of local instruments that gave the music a true african vibe.