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Reflections on Africa. After all, it’s all about the Music
Written by Jimmy
I don’t tend to write very profound or serious blogs. I’d always prefer to recommend a song, or video or website than to force you to listen to my babble. Unless I’m revealing shocking stories of my lack of fitness or general deterioration. But I had the pleasure this African trip to travel with my wife and son. At one moment, a potential sponsor of Singing Wells asked why I ever got involved. And I gave an answer that my son had never heard and his request was simple: “Dad, rather than all your crap recommendation of old and tired songs, videos or websites that most of us discovered two years ago, why don’t you write a blog about your answer?” So, I’ve been forced into this. Apologies in advance.
First, a little more background to Singing Wells for those of you who don’t know much about it. When we established Abubilla Music, we also established the Abubilla Music Foundation, a registered charity, to support music projects the in developed world. We have two major projects currently – a small project in Brazil to support the awesome Flavio Pimento on his Meninos do Morumbi project and a big project in Africa called Singing Wells. We work directly with Ketebul Music, founded by Tabu Osusa, the legendary Kenyan music producer (the more we work with Tabu, the more we realise how luck we are with him as a partner). Our goal in East Africa is simple: to record and nurture the tribal music of East Africa, hopefully introducing it to a new generation of musicians, songwriters and fans. East Africa is alone in Africa for not having the majority of its contemporary musicians embracing the region’s musical culture. Our goal is to change that. We’ve now recorded the music in three provinces in Kenya (Coastal, Luo and Rift Valley) and the Batwa of Uganda. We have trips scheduled now for Northern Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi and our sponsor list keeps growing. We are clearly on to something and we’ve gotten great feedback on the songs, videos and photos we are bringing back from our field visits.
We just returned from Nairobi, having driven for a gazillion miles through the Rift Valley, working 20 hour days (drive, record, drive, produce) and spending two straight weekends in the Ketebul Studios in Nairobi recording musicians we discovered in the field. And, when a donor saw my sun burned faced, filthy trousers, sweaty shirt (we all wear a ‘uniform’ in the field of very cool Singing Wells shirts, but we only issue one for five days!), and tired eyes, he asked, “So, how the hell did you get involved in this project?” My answer, which wasnt’ something I had ever thought about surprised my son. “I love music. But these tribal groups love music in a way that is more real, more genuine, and more awe-inspiring than any music lovers I’ve ever seen. They wake to music – their voices, their songs greeting a new day. They eat to music, their beats, their dance, thanking that gods for their food. They celebrate their love, their births, their deaths through song and chants. And they mourn through laments. When we invited the Batwa to Nairobi to record in the studio, we realised that they would sing through every hour of the day, whether we were recording or not. It is common to give studio performers an hour break for every hour of recording. The Batwa simply continued to sing out side during their break. When we drove them back to their hotel at midnight after 10 hours of recording, we found out they entertained hotel guests until four am with continued song. We weren’t forcing them to sing over the weekend, we were simply inserting a microphone into the song that is their lives. That is why I love African music – because in their lives, it is truly all about the music. And while I can’t love music the way they love music, I can love them loving music. If you know what I mean.” I’m not sure the donor cared much for the answer, but my son did.
And we talked about the difference of the African tribal music and our music. Their music is the opposite of my music. Our music is classified, is labeled with genre and style and claimed by sub-groups. We partially use music to alienate – we assign it our tribe and then imply that your tribe shouldn’t listen to it. I was a child of the 60’s-70’s and had to hate fifties music and disco and eighties music as I laid claim to ‘my music.’ We define people by the music and judge people by their musical taste. We love music, but use music as a yard stick to measure. Good African tribal music is cross-generational. It is mean to bring the generations together, tie people together. And the more we study it, it is more often than not used to tie tribes together – there are so many songs to peace, songs to finding common ground.
And there is no listening to music. You have to shake, rattle and roll. We have lost count of how many times a local tribes-woman, not in the group, has been listening to one of the performances, and then she moves her arms to the music, she rises from the floor, she dances around the edge of the performance and then marches right into the group and begins to sing and dance. Others always try to stop her, feeling that she is ruining the ‘performance.’ And we always stop to explain that this is the performance, capturing the ‘group’ and capturing the audience. And they are always one. Everyone joins in. Everyone knows the song and the dance. The groups are mostly defined as wearing the same costumes, but in almost every case the audience can’t help but join in and dance.
And that’s why I love the Singing Wells project. It lets me hang out with folks that really love music. I can’t live and love music the way they do, but I can love the way they love music. And that’s enough for me.