Hans Johnson grew up making music. After high school, he set out to record the little-documented songs of East Africa’s Maasai tribe. He eventually moved into professional videography and continued writing the music for his own films. These combined talents and understanding of the movement of music and film gives Hans' music an imminently relevant sound.

​Born in Minnesota to musical parents, he began writing and recording his own songs by singing into a little tape recorder at the age of 5. His family moved around a lot when he was young, giving him a deep appreciation for different cultures and music. This led him to study anthropology in college. He would spend hours in the college's music library with headphones on, listening to vinyl recordings made by Alan Lomax of indigenous music he had collected from around the world.

After first hearing a recording of Maasai music, He was enamored. He contacted the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, but could not find any other recordings. Inspired by Alan Lomax, He decided to take what little savings he had from working in a record store to buy a plane ticket to Kenya. In a few weeks, he was living with a Maasai family in a mud hut in search of Maasai music.

His trip to Kenya was a transformative experience. He learned about Maasai culture, hitchhiked around the countryside recording over 300 songs, and even went through parts of the warrior initiation with my age-mates. He was hooked. He returned to Kenya many times thereafter, recording more music and slowly learning to speak Maa (the Maasai language).

In college, He played in local bands in Minnesota, including as drummer for the Minneapolis band Dance Band, as well as with my friend Alan Sparhawk (Low) and the late, great blues legend David "Honeyboy" Edwards.
He now travels back and forth between Kenya and Boston. He continue to record traditional music from around the world. His compositions have been featured in television shows (BBC, SKY, NBC) and in commercials (Amazon Fresh, Subaru, Sony).
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He is a passionate advocate for cultural understanding and respect for indigenous cultural knowledge, especially when it comes to care for the environment. He hope that my songs are a reminder that music can be a powerful force for cultural understanding and greater peace in the world.

from: Hans Johnson's Bandcamp & website. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.