Music Like Dirt

in honor of some friends who drove to northern Kenya this weekend and because I couldn't go (damn you, commitments to this opportunity that brought me to Kenya in the first place!) I've put together 

the 31 core tracks of The Ultimate Northern Kenya Playlist. 

These songs have accompanied me on all my travels, in various stages of repetition (see play count).

A few notes:
Boxer, The National: This music is the sandy roads outside of South Horr. For some reason, while composed thousands of miles away in Brooklyn, this one of the most fitting soundtracks for northern Kenya. I had to include the album in its entirety.

"Strangers in Strange Land," Leon Russell: This song is the perfect accompaniment for a flock of birds catching a thermal, spiraling high above the desert.

The King of Limbs, Radiohead: While Radiohead’s entire canon could have been written to score a trip to northern Kenya, this album is the most precise. "Bloom" will forever conjure images of dropping down the final escarpment and speeding along the shore of Lake Turkana, sun beating down, hot air pounding through the vehicle, the water shimmering, people out floating on rafts or casting nets from the shore.

"Juicy," The Notorious B.I.G.: A slight departure from the other, more contemplative selections, this song is equally representative and emblematic of northern Kenya. To listen to music in the Land Cruiser, we have a basic memory stick reader that plugs into the cigarette lighter. Often, someone will insert a stick containing 11 songs that are played, on repeat, for the duration of a three week trip. However, if we are lucky, someone will throw on a mystery stick containing hundreds of potential gems. Hearing "Juicy" while driving through the Kaisut Desert was perhaps the gem-mest of them all.