Keiko Lee Sings Super Standards CD

Mr. Soteri was born in Rwanda, a small, hilly, landlocked nation located in the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa, and grew up in Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia. 'We were always singing and drumming -- that was in the culture,' he recalls of his boyhood, 'My mother encouraged me at all times, so I started singing in church choir as a boy.

' He most admired the local watwa tradition, whose practitioners played music incessantly, as he has since done all his life. His first performance occurred at the age of ten, when he sang and danced before the President of Tanzania. Later, he would hear Tanzanian Taarab, a suave, big-band blend of African, Indian and Arab elements, crisp, throbbing Kenyan Benga groups, and Ethiopian pop, in which the rolling, jagged tempos and five-tone melodic structures typical of Amaharic-language traditional sources and American R&B were fused into one of Africa's most thrilling styles. As Congolese radio was ubiquitous on the Continent, he became a fan of that nation's wildly popular, guitar-driven, rumba-based grooves. 'When we moved to Tanzania, I started listening to Congolese music,' he says, 'Tabu Ley Rochereau was so wonderful! I loved all the beautiful harmonies and the guitars -- it was all I thought about! Then we moved to Kenya and there was so much music of all kinds there, including many bands from Congo -- I was in heaven!' He was also influenced by Nigerian superstar Fela Kuti and the groundbreaking African-Caribbean combo, Osibisa.

But Western artists were also being heard and he soon developed firm favorites among these, too. American jazz and R&B legends like Wes Montgomery, George Benson and Stevie Wonder attracted his attention but certain rock artists also appealed to him. 'I thought I had heard it all 'till I heard the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix!' By now, his career was beginning to pick up momentum. 'I started singing with some local school bands and did some competitions at a famous club in Nairobi, Kenya, called The Starlight. There I met the Ashantis, a very well-known band, who were then working in Ethiopia. The leader told me that were a lot of bands who could use me as a singer. By now, I was fooling around with the guitar so I decided to pack it up and go to Ethiopia. In no time at all, through my friend, I had lined up gigs with Telahoun Gesese, Alemayo Eshete, Mulatu Astatke and played for a long time with Aster Aweke. I also backed up Manu Dibango ('Soul Makossa') while he was touring in Ethiopia.