John Katokye is a cowherd from the Banyankore Bantu people in western Uganda, who keeps alive the singing tradition of his people and his profession: ancient call-and-response songs, music reduced to the bare essentials – just singing and the tapping of his herding staff. Katokye has tended cattle to earn a living ever since he was a young boy, and he has spent decades wandering through his homeland singing. This art form is known as 'Ekyeshongoro'. This term describes short poetic phrases conveying fragments of impressions and reflecting on family, the region's history or its landscapes, where longhorn cattle graze gracefully. A second singer – in Rudolstadt, this is Samuel Rujeru – often layers the vocal lines in a continuous flow of song that can last more than ten minutes. The singers mark key turning points in their performance by raising their pitch together with pinpoint precision, steadily increasing the intensity of the current that draws the audience into a hypnotic maelstrom.

Photo: Basile Koechlin