Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno

About Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno

Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist from Kenya, Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno is a virtuoso of the nyatiti, a traditional eight-string lyre from the shores of Nam Lolwe (Lake Victoria). The music he creates is deeply rooted in traditional storytelling from the Lüo community, nilotes who settled in Western Kenya and who are known to play the nyatiti.​

Rapasa has been looking at democratising East African Music through solo projects and collaborations. He has been volunteering at Hakuna Matata since 2018, a music and art family festival based in the suburbs of Hamburg. Rapasa was a facilitator at Making Tracks 2022 and a fellow participant in 2019 during the pilot of this project. Teasers of his latest album JOPANGO have been released since November 2022. The full work which was supported by Help Musicians will be released on the 29th of November 2023. During his participation in Sage Gateshead Artist in Residence program in 2020/2021 he developed KWEChE which looks at taboos and how to adapt in a new environment. With this project he started looking at a different way to perform his work and furthered this idea supported by the Arts Council of England to develop skills in live media interaction. The film of his Snape Malting residency in Feb 2022, where he performed a full set of nyatiti music with live media projection, was showcased at the Festival of New Screening in Sep 2022.