Labdi Ommes’ journey began with a single question: What happens to a voice when its history is forgotten? That question led her back to the orutu, an ancient Luo instrument that once echoed through community rituals, storytelling circles and celebrations. Though tradition said women were not meant to play it, she picked it up anyway and, in so doing, discovered a missing piece of herself. The orutu became more than an instrument: it became a compass. It led her to elders and hidden archives, to stories buried in silence, and to music nearly erased by time. It taught her that every sound holds a memory, every rhythm a lineage. Today, Ommes is a custodian of culture, devoted to reviving and reimagining Indigenous music. She performs, researches, teaches and writes so that the orutu can speak again — not as a relic, but as a vibrant part of Africa’s future. Her work invites new generations, especially girls, to see tradition not as a boundary, but as a beginning. Ommes stands where past and future meet, letting an ancient string sing a new world into being.