Feeling a little frayed at the edges…….I just spent the morning dealing with getting myself back to Rio. Varig cancelled my return from Johannesburg to São Paulo and offered me a flight from Frankfurt, Germany instead. Oh yeah, just jump on the subway - JoBurg - Frankfurt line…..I got a flight - for $700. Varig says they “can’t guarantee any compensation.” Hmmmm. thanks.
Well, where was I? I posted a whole load of posts that had been gathering on my desktop and shooed them away like in one fell swoop. Then, life goes on and there are other things to take our attention.
The view from the “studio” at Dhow Countries Music Academy
This is Mohammed Othman on violin.
Had to go back to the music academy again to overdub some stuff. The violin guy wanted to add a second violin and we also wanted to get Mahsinn on tabla, Ibrahim on oud cause he kept somehow sidestepping the whole recording thing, even though it was his initial idea, Adel wanted to redo his bass track and I wanted to get another vocal take. Mahsinn didn’t show up. I passed ibrahim on his way out saying that sometimes things just don’t work out cryptically and taking off. Adel said he could only do it another day when he had his bass. The singer was no where to be found (is there a theme going on here?). 
So, matona, the trooper, did Ibrahim’s ud track, his own cello track again and then cello on 3 tracks of mine.
Later, Hilde called to come and have a drink with her and Matona and a guest who had come from Cairo. It was nice to hang out with them a bit. Matona launched off on a hundred stories from his time as a beer drinking university student in France, musicians in Zanzibar and how they can’t be trusted for anything and I don’t know what else.
Today, I went to Akhenaton to record, but Muda Criss didn’t show up and I had forgotten my m box. I could have waited and worked a little, it just didn’t seem to be right, so I came bck to town and dealt with email and cleaning up my hard drive a bit. 
At 5, I had an appointment with matona to record his quartet at Monsoon where they usually play on the weekends. everything worked out well. We tracked 4 songs. Basic stereo recording. stereo mic straight to my maudio flash card recorder. Adel was supposed to come over and do the bass track afterwards, but he said tomorrow……
Got the recording back home to the computer, mastered it and made a CD. Tonight I’ll give it to matona and see if I can post something from it. here are a couple fotos.
Looks like I’m going to Cape Town to do a gig with Fletcher from African Dope Records. I’m pretty excited about that. I’ll have to leave here a bit earlier than planned, but it’s for good reason. I’m a huge fan of the African Dope sound. Dub ragga hip hop kwaito and other little bits of this and that get in there. somehow, it really sounds like it’s from SA. Not sure how to explain that. Obviously, it IS from there, but it has a kind of organic real human attachment to SA. If you don’t know them, you should check it out.
As it turns out, Excel had dropped the computer shortly before we started the recording (maybe that’s why he seemed a little disconnected from things and was glued to the computer). As of yesterday, it wouldn’t boot up and 2 of the 3 tracks from the recording are on its drive. He went to Dar es Salaam today to see if they could fix it. I didn’t get a chance to mess around with it to see what the problem was. I went to the academy today to see if I could round up the remaining musicians to do overdubs for the recording. It’s a bit like herding cats. Anyway, there is a schedule and plan to get stuff done……let’s see how it turns out in practice. Fid Q texted and said he’s coming on friday as he is leaving for the UK on sunday morning. Sweet Ray is nowhere to be found. Mjus totally disappeared since the day we recorded the guide vocal. I’m just taking it in stride. I think it means that they weren’t meant to record.
Posted on: August 23rd, 2006 qanun and mp3s
Traded a shit load of mp3s with Khamis today. Had a nice chat with Kheri from the music academy today about production classes producing music and such. Still need to hook up with him. the cassettes from alakeifak are really cool, but the quality is shit. They are cassette recordings made on a shitty machine with bad levels striaght off the house mixer. However, some of the material is absolutely spectacular. Got 3 cassettes finished….still 4 to go. I guess it’s a good thing that I can’t drive or get my wounded hand wet - there is a lot to do! Recorded some qanun with matona. sounds good..
Finally made the Safar recording. Of course, nothing was exactly what was expected. Excel was there to help and to run logic (which I don’t know at all). we combined my equipment with the schools gear and managed to rig up an 8 channel multitrack system. the room was a bare concrete rectangular room (with nice views out over the harbor if you opened the windows) surrounded by wooden slat doors that gave out onto the harbor and the huge machinery apparatus that was moving earth right on the road in front of the academy. Pretty damn not-ideal setup, but it’s what we had to work with.
Eventually, there were 7 musicians: cello (Matona), violin, congas, tabla/darabouka, qanun, electric fretless bass (adel) and vocal. We moved onto the 2nd track which went down really well. At the end, Logic frooze and we had to force shutdown to get out of it. On restart, we tried to listen to it to determine whether to do a second take of either of the tunes. Logic kept crashing. it would only partially show the wave form but it would play the audio or there would be static. Seemed like corrupt file ville. they decided to redo the first tune. logic worked normally throughout until the end when it was stopped, it froze again. Again it would freeze when the track was played. I tried copying the audio files to my ipod. it would start to copy and then freeze up.
at home, the first song which I was able to copy sounded great when i messed with it in pro tools. should be cool. I hope we can get those other files from the laptop…….
Posted on: August 23rd, 2006 woke up late
Woke up late. Had coffee and beans and chapati, got my gear and headed to the music academy to record Safar. Matona and Adel and the qanun player were there. Well, 3 out of 7, that’s a start……no, Mahsinn is in Dar, ibrahim doesn’t have his ud, the singer is at home and the violinist had something else going on. So, we moved it to monday.
email, forodhani for food a DVD and sleep.
Posted on: August 23rd, 2006 Vespa crash
Today, I had a pretty fucking interesting day. I got up, did my yoga, showered, had a coffee at Jaws Corner and beans and chapati at my other spot, packed some peanuts and crackers and water and started to take off on the vespa. Just outside my door, I met Sharifa, who I knew through the filming of the documentary. I had invited here before to go on a moped trip across the island and she always refused. So, of course, I offered again and she accepted. We stopped by her house for her to get ready and then we took off to Paje where we hunted down a friend of hers that she had some biashara with, I took a swim and then we continued on to Makunduchi to check out the apartment that she and her brother have. By then, it was getting late and we started back to Town.
Just before the turnoff to Uzi Island there is a sort of highland, wetter area where there are more tall trees and it’s lusher and greener. There was smoke across the road from a cooking fire. A bit farther down, there a daladala stopped and there was a cluster of people on both sides of the road. I slowed down and noted a man beginning to cross the road just in front of me. I slowed more. He started running, all the while looking in the away from me. I slowed more. he kept running toward the center of the road. I slammed on teh brakes. We skidded straight the fuck smack into him. the vespa kneeled down and I heard something crack snap. the engine died and I heard the back end hit the road. I was ahead and sliding on my knees elbows, hand and waist. Slowly, I came to a stop. I ws on my stomach as though i were doing pushups. My face felt okay and healthy. weird. I sensed a lot of people around on all sides totally stopped and watching (like me - like, what the fuck! oh my goddamn! 
). That was pretty intense. Sharifa landed right on top of me and rolled to the side. I turned and looked at her. Asked her if she was okay. She asked me if I was okay. I looked ot the old man who was turned away and beginning to get up. We stood up. Somebody came and picked up the vespa and wheeled it to teh side of the road. Another grabbed the speedometer and the dashboard cover that had cracked and flew off. I began to hurt. I noticed blood dripping on my pant leg and on my foot, but I didn’t know where it was coming from. Was it dripping form a tree above me? My pants had blood on them, but I lifted my pant leg and my left knee was only slightly brazed. Then I realized there was a big gash in my left hand. I still couldn’t feel much and put pressure on it with my right hand which was also bleeding, but not as much. Sharifa suggested we move off to sit down. It was starting to get dark. Somehow, it was much darker then the moment that the crash took place. There was a large crowd of people around us. Different than other times I’ve been surrounded by crowds like that before. Very still and somehow respectful. the mzee sat near us. I asked him if he was okay. yes. okay. Sharifa was okay. I was okay. Okay. Sharifa went to talk to the mzee. He had hurt his leg and was worried about his bicycle and his leg and getting treatment and being able to work and his family. He wanted compensation. sheriyah asked how much money I had. There were a few older male dudes who were somehow taking care of shit. Crowd control somehow. m aking sure the vespa was cool. Sharifa asked one of the boys to bring my bag closer to us. Somebody gave me a bandana to wrap around my hand. the mzee moved away to a nearby baraza and was being checked on by some older dudes. A crowd started to gather around him and away from him. I don’t know what was happenging there. Some of the older guys shooed everyone away and then came and called me over to talk. She seemed to think that the best thing to do was to make a settlement before the police came. the police came almost exactly at that moment. they didn’t come and ask us if we were okay. they just showed up on their vespa, turned the engine off and the guy started writing something and he called on his cell phone. then, we were iinformed that all of us were going to the police station. One of the cops drove my vespa with me on back, Sharifa on the back of the cop vespa and the old mand mzee on somebody’s bicylcle (don’t know if it was his own, never saw his bike) to the station. At the station i was able to take stock of my injuries a bit more. I stopped shaking as much as I had been. I had felt really cold straight after the accident. We all sat in a sort of conference room where one cop with a Zantel Tshirt on took our names, ages and addresses (but didn’t ask to see ID) and then just told me that I should pay Tsh50,000 in compensation. I lamented the fact that the mzee was apparently injured (first he said he couldn’t walk and then walked right into the police station) and that his bicycle was damaged, but it was his fault,. were they taking that into consideration? I understand that it was very unfortunate, but damn, really?! yes, he wanted compensation or they (not he) would take it to court. I would be legally bound to appear in court a month or so from now (of course beyond the time I had told him I would be staying here). then, I could request and investigation and see what happened. or i could pay now. “hush money,” he whispered to me. So, I stood up and said thank and that I’d be going. Sharifa had already handed over the money. I asked for soap and water and tried to clean my wounds. meanwhile, Sharifa called her brother to come and fetch us. he arrived promptly with a truck and when i had gotten out of the bathroom, the vespa was loaded in the back, the engine was running and we just took off. Her brother informed us that the police stayed with Tsh10,000 and the old man mzee made off with Tsh40,000 (about US$35.00). We drove back to Stone Town and discussed what to do with the vespa. Sharifa’s brother would take it to his fundi and get it fixed tomorrow and we would go straight to the hospital in Town. At the hospital, the doctor was just on his way out, but let me in. He asked what I was doing there, took a look at my hand and despite me saying that I was in an moped accident, he said that looks like s nail went in there. I said, no, I was in an accident. He said, that could have been a rusty nail. I said, no, I was in a road accident. The nurse in black bui bui said, a road accident. He scrawled a bunch of stuff on the prescription pad and handed it to the mama. She looked at me and said, stiches. i wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement or what. In another room, I got hydrogenperoxide, iodine, tetanus shot, pain killer shot right in the middle of the big gash in my hand. then stiches. Got both legs and arms cleaned up and counted myself lucky. Tomorrow, I’ll find out how much the vespa is gonna cost.
Went to Makonela Records in Mombasa today to visit Makonela who I had originally met at Akhenaton studios where I gave them a Reason lesson. His studio was cool as hell.
Housed in a shipping container, it has two rooms constructed independently of the surrounding metal container. He has a pretty basic setup of a PC with an m-audio card, a small PA mixer, 4 different speakers as monitors (controlled with the busses on the mixer. including a Mackie 824 with a crushed tweeter), a bass, an amp a couple mics.
He mostly records tracks for people. Basically, the artist comes in with a song idea. The producer then creates a base (what they call a beat here) and together, they produce the track. It is exceedingly rare to use live acoustic instruments. He makes the beat, records the vocal, mixes and masters a 4 track CD - 1. Full Mix 2. Beat and Chorus 3. Beat 4. Acapella. total cost starts at Tsh85,000 (about US$68). All this takes 3 to 4 hours.
The mix comes from Reason running in demo type mode rewired to cubase. Not super clear on PCs, let alone Cubase/reason setup….nothing is compressed, eqed or mixed beyond ajusting the volume. the vocal gets a little reverb if anything. All the sounds come from reason or the cubase vst instruments. There is no mastering beyond burning the mix to CD.
Makonela wants to learn how to improve the quality of his production. I taught him a little about compression, setting up aux sends/returns for FX, recording the audio of a midi track in order to process it.
From there, I headed across town too Mbweni to Heartbeat Records, the big studio in town. It took me a while to find it, but eventually I found a dude on a bmx bike who took me back around away from the road. then, it was hard to miss - big paintings of Hearbeat Recording on the outside in red, green and gold. It was a big house with a driveway and entryway and entry hall and lounge. the studio was off to the side. Air conditioned, it was quiet and well sound proofed in there. I hadn’t heard that kind of silence for such a long time, it was impressive. Chu Chu is the headman there. There were stickers for American Music all over and I asked if he had gone to American Music in Seattle. He bought all the studio equipment there, but then he was already off on another subject. He played the first track of a compilation of ragga they had done. We listened to the track from beginning to end. He chuckled a bit at the end. Professional. Slick. Sounded well balanced on the monitors (also the first I’d seen in a while). More like RnB with a ragga pulse. Okay. We talked about heartbeat records. Initally, they started out producing tracks for anyone and everyone. A Congolese dude named Alan worked there for quite a while before there was some sort of misunderstanding between him and Chuchu. Now Chuchu has 2 producers that he brings over from Dar es Salaam when necessary. Eventually, he tired of so many different artists and decided to create the label in order to work with select artists and market them. He was talking about selling 30,000 cassettes and 3000 CDs per release. All the duplication is done in Dar. they do blitz releases in the bigger cities - Mbeya, Dodoma, Arusha, Tanga. but not zanzibar. There is too much piracy in Zanzibar. You give it to one person today and tomorrow everyone has it, but in Dar=, they respect copyrights. And, do labels in Dar pay radio stations to play their music? No, that doesn’t happen, but there are partnerships between stations and studios and the associated artists……
He quickly showed me the recording room, chatted on the phone and said he had to go.
I crossed over to Akhenaton studios which is in nearby Chukwani. Juma 20 was just walking out, but Muda Criss was ready to work. We set up my laptop to the system and I got to making a beat. Muda Criss rhymed and tried it out. An hour or so later, it was sounding pretty good. the lyrics are about his father who is unjustly in prison for murder in India, so he wants to work with that India/Zanzibar connection.
Posted on: August 23rd, 2006 another day
….the Jet Li DVD was so scratched up it wouldn’t play! hahaha!
Today was a little better. Only one cancellation - Sweet Ray. Matona and I did manage to record a couple ud tracks and we redid the violins for another track. All in all, pretty damn good for 1 1/2 hours. After listening back to everything in my “down” hours last night, I realized that his shit is so good that I just have to trust it. I worked out everything that needs to get tracked and by who. Now, just gotta do it. Time is starting to feel a little short. I’ve got another 2 weeks or so here and then it’s on to Bongo and Bagamoyo.
Today didn’t pan out at all like i’d planned. Par for the course in these parts, really.
I DID manage to do a cross countryside jaunt on my vespa. I drove to Uzi Island, which is about 40km south and east of Stone Town over a good road, then a dirt road, then a bad road, then a rock track across a mangrove swamp, then another bad road to a trail head (with monkeys chowing down on food left in plastic jerry cans cut in half and tied into the trees by fisherman) that lead through a submerged trail through another mangrove swamp and out the other side at beach. I hung out a little while at the beach and then decided that I’d better go. I was a little worried that the coral rock road which cut through the mangroves would be inundated by the coming tide and I’d get stuck. After getting to the dirt road and a small village, I saw an old man selling coffee on the side of the road and decided to stop for a little break.
Sitting down and greeting everybody and getting a cup of coffee, I chatted a little with the mzee about the road and we both agreed that last little stretch back there is mbaya sana. then i noticed the guy squatting half in the road across from me. I thought he looked familiar and then he asked me if I remembered him. I did, but wasn’t sure from where. He said, sukomuhogo. I didn’t remember, but he continued on.
I had been drinking coffee (again) at Jaws Corner and I met his wife who apparently is mzungu. Then, it hit me who he was. I was drinking my coffee staring in space thinking about whatever, his wife sat down near me (I’d seen her around before) and a sort of seemed like he was drunk crazy guy with scabs all over his legs thrust a tourist propaganda pamphlet in my face. when i didn’t take it from him (even though he was demanding that I read it), he set it on my lap. I said thank you and turned thank you, but isn’t this her’s (I hadn’t seen them together and had only seen her out of the corner of my eye. There were other pamphlets laying next to her)? She said, that no, it was his. He kept talking to me. Sort of, rastaman, i & I, one love babble. I finished my coffee and took off.
Now, here he was squatted in front of me in this totally out of the way little village. The respectable and solid wazee from the coffee baraza didn’t seem to be put off by him. He even spoke english well, even though his thoughts were downright incoherent. He insisted that I come to his house and meet his wife (I still didn’t know that it was that woman from Jaws Corner). I declined saying that I had to be back in Stone Town for a meeting. He insisted and insisted and then said he was going to get here and I should wait. So, i waited and chatted with the wazee some more (they were very cool). Ate a banana.
Eventually, he showed up with that grey haired, spectacled and also very scabby, hippy german woman from Jaws Corner. She told me that she’d lived in that little village for 7 years and was a plastic artist and then insisted on having me visit their house down the road. Of course, I went, but of course, she had to stop off and buy oil and kerosene (they didn’t have either), and chat and buy vegetables too, but eventually were on our way. Their house was a very run down and dirty mud house (she called it a pigeon house?), fenced around with palm thatch, and filled with all kinds of random animals - dogs, cats, birds, insects. Her art wasn’t so in evidence, but she did show me 2 fish carvings painted day glo colors and embellished with soft dried coral. She smoked. Abdullah, her husband came back and weaved around drunkenly, saying, “I am not a rastaman. I am not a hippy. i am a natural man. i am a good and I am a bad man. If you treat me good, then I am good. if you treat me bad, then I am bad.” They invited me for fish sometime. i told them I’d see them at Jaws Corner and made my exit. Abdullah followed me saying that he wasn’t a rastaman or a hippy and alla dat again. When we were to shake hands he made a fist instead. I put up my fist and he smacked it really hard and said one love or something.
Back in town, the meeting with Kapande at alekaifak didn’t really work out. he had been expecting Khamis to come also and that there and then we’d listen to all these tapes and choose which ones to transfer to CD. Sounded like a lot of work to me. Khamis wasn’t around and I had to go and meet Matona. We left it for tomorrow……
Back at the crib, Matona never showed up. I got a text message from Sweet Ray saying that she couldn’t come for the 9 pm session, but we could meet tomorrow instead.
I rented a Jet Li DVD and am gonna just chill.
Posted on: August 14th, 2006 Mimi
Mimi nakwanza kusema kiswahili
My swahili has been getting better. I guess I speak enough to lead people into thinking that I can understand them speaking normally. I know enough to be dangerous so to speak. Usually another way of saying that I don’t really know squat but that I can sometimes make like I do. Actually, it’s very cool. People really like and appreciate it if someone is trying to learn Swahili. Totally the opposite from my experience speaking portuguese where everybody wants to try their english out on you and automatically assumes that you don’t speak portuguese. But then, I’m talking shit and just generalizing……yeye mzungu….anajua kiswahili?
BTB and friends listening to playback.
Home style reverb chamber…
Recorded the “reverb chamber” for the BTB choruses today. Sounds cool. Last night we recorded the vocals. They’re super happy. I left them with a rough mix and the beat and chorus.
I went back to Akhenaton studio to give them a crash course in Reason. We crammed in front of the monitor on some salvaged 70’s bar stools and squinted. The only light came from the vocal booth (covered in foam cushions grafitted with bikini’d women and tags and lyrics and whatnot) and it was dark and the mosquitos bit my feet. Just the basics - open a session, create a template, create a mixer, redrum machine, Dr. rex player, synth, sampler and effects. then I programmed a beat, made a bass line and a chop stylee reggae rhodes line and made some simple effects automation. They asked me to come back again and do a track for Muda Criss who is one of their family rappers. There was another guy who had come specifically to meet me and have the lesson. I didn’t know him before. He has a small studio just outside of stone town. His main priority is to learn how to record live instruments. He invited me to come over later in the week. Afterwards everybody talked about the different things they wanted to learn and focus on and it gave me a lot of ideas as far as designing workshops and teaching people.
It’s kind of crazy. The more I talk to people that are really interested and struggling to learn even the basics of digital audio recording and production, the more I realize how damn hard it is for someone in a place as “isolated” as Zanzibar. AND, how important it is to maintain, develop and sustain local culture and tradition. Modern taarab has become so incredibly popular as a result of the fact that there are very few experienced people and very few places to record live orchestras. That, and the fact that a keyboard is just plain way easier to deal with. It’s also the reason why most of bongo flava sounds exactly the same.
there’s gotta be a whole movement out there of people who are totally into international lounge casio cheese. I’d make a compilation if I could stomach listening to enough of it. But, I digress……
One of the guys watched me setup a compressor in the reason session and asked me if there were any presets for “hip hop kick drums.” Fortunately in Reason it’s a little bit more complicated (or at least circuitous) to save a compressor setting than just saving it as a patch. I told him that he should just pick one instrument, patch it into the compressor and play around with the sound until he was bored out of his head. Then put it on whatever setting he thought sounded the best. They are really interested in having higher quality mixes, but the standard for quality is not simply their own ears, but american hip hop (for the most part). i think it’s great to listen to other music that is mixed well side by side with your own original music, but that is like mastering. The choice of kick drum shouldn’t play into this. the kick drum simply IS and that’s what you have to work with in the mix. The kick drum IS what it is because it was chosen for it’s feeling and vibe. NOT because it’s like 50 cent’s kick drum or the rest of the bongo flava kicks.
But, then all of these judgements of mine are from a place divorced from economics. They also want to know how to get their music out to the public. They want to make money at it. If it doesn’t fill the floor at Bhawani Hotel on saturday night, it ain’t workin. Lovely, that there may or may not be some erudite music fan in Norway or Tokyo that appreciates their well chosen kick drum, but that ain’t selling cassettes in Dar es Salaam. All of this actually makes me want to try and make a total pop song to make all the asses shake at Bhawani and all those discos witht he fucking smoke machines and cheesy lights and too drunk people. Just as a challenge.
Today, i also got a call from one mr Jhiko Manyika, who I had originally met at the music academy. he was here in Zanzibar to perform during the ZIFF. He said he liked my tracks (and especially the one with Xuman) and would like to work with me AND that he invited me to come and stay some days at his house in Bagamoyo. Well, damn! I’d been thinking about him as well and the possibility of doing just that and whatdya know? He was also pretty psyched to hear that Matona and I have been cooking up some sounds together too.
This week is looking pretty busy. I’ve got things lined up with Sweet Ray, Mjus, Matona and another rapper name MT AND tomorrow I’m picking up the vespa again to do some cruising. Pretty stoked about that.
Where I eat dinner…..Forodhani “Gardens”
Had to go back to the music academy again to overdub some stuff. The violin guy wanted to add a second violin and we also wanted to get Mahsinn on tabla, Ibrahim on oud cause he kept somehow sidestepping the whole recording thing, even though it was his initial idea, Adel wanted to redo his bass track and I wanted to get another vocal take. Mahsinn didn’t show up. I passed ibrahim on his way out saying that sometimes things just don’t work out cryptically and taking off. Adel said he could only do it another day when he had his bass. The singer was no where to be found (is there a theme going on here?). 
