John Kariuki
28 January 2008
Nairobi — KENYA'S BENGA BEAT APPEARS TO BE on the threshold of a long-awaited international breakthrough as the widely acclaimed quartet Extra Golden step up their quest to enter the mainstream of popular music with a number that blends Luo benga with elements of US pop music.
The lineup comprises Opiyo Bilongo on guitar and vocals and Onyango Wuod Omari on drums, the two Kenyans in the group - and Lan Eagelson and Alex Minoff - who are the American factor.
Onyango Jagwasi, the third Kenyan, died in 2005.
Extra Golden's new album Hera Ma Nono (Meaningless Love), released recently through US label Thrill Jockey, is already attracting favourable media attention through its deft blend of influences from the two cultures to create a genre with an appeal in the rock and world music categories.
The group has already made a name for itself with this fascinating fusion.
The benga guitar solos and the dance beat to provide the rhythm while the US pop flavour is used as the underpining in the guitar section.
It is the group's second album and it has already built strong audiences through mostly live appearances. Extra Golden's launch album was Ok-Oyot, which came out in 2006 and featured in the prestigious Rolling Stone magazine - a respected publication for serious music in the US specialising in pop and rock music.
The magazine gave the album a three-star rating and hailed the music as a challenging mix that could well fit in the indie-rock music market in the US.
After watching them play live, Jabali Afrika leader Josek Asikoye expressed his amazement at the new blend and how easily the two genres fuse to create a hard gritty sound that is more benga, but with a clear US rock flavour that appeals to the crossover rock market.
He said, "Its so natural one cannot imagine the geographical distances that separate them."
The group was formed in 2004 with Onyango Jagwasi as the lead singer. His death threw the project into temporary uncertainty until Eagelson discovered Bilongo's superlative talents and Extra Golden was back on course.
Among the tracks on their new album is Obama - a tribute to America presidential contender Barack Obama, who helped the group with its first recording and with travel arrangements to perform in the US two years ago.
Other tracks are Jakolando, Night Runners and I Miss You, which have an intriguing interplay of benga guitar and Western pop guitar.
Traditionally, African music falls into the world music category, which, though showing steady growth in volume and live performance opportunities, is still a pale reflection of the volumes moved and audience appeal generated in the mainstream category. The dream of every recording artistes is to penetrate this most lucrative realm of the international music business.
This is the second time in nearly three decades that benga is drawing international attention as a likely "next big thing." The first time was in the late 1980s when Shirati Jazz toured the UK (without its leader - the late D.O Misiani and music critics were full of praise for the group and its brand of benga.
A manager at Virgin Records said he saw a huge crossover potential for benga, whose hard edged guitar should appeal to the European rock market.
"But Kenyans have to come here and push for it," he said. The big problem with Shirati was that it lacked a manager to oversee the marketing and placement of shows and a publicist to deal with the media. Both are vital for anybody seeking contracts with major record companies because they do not deal directly with artistes on professional matters.
STILL, IT IS UNLIKELY THAT Shirati would have attained mainstream status with the roots benga music it played; it would, like most African musicians overseas, have been forever confined to the fridges of the world music segment.
For Extra Golden, the combination of African and overseas musicians has become a proven formula that has broken barriers for African music overseas.
Last year, we witnessed this through Benin diva Angelique Kidjo with her single Gimme Shelter from her album Djin Djin.
The song, a collaboration with British rock singer Ross Stone, draws inspiration from the Darfur crisis. In the number, Kidjo moves away from her traditional music influences to embrace a more rock sound in both structure and vocal performance.
The concept was certainly a replica of the Youssou Ndour and Neneh Cherry effort in the 1979 single 7 Seconds, which rewarded the Senegalese artiste with the only overseas top 10 single in his illustrious career.
Asked why African musicians have such a hard time breaking into the overseas pop market, British musician Robin Scott, whose single Pop Music was a hit, said they do not understand the European taste, so that it is more likely for a European artiste to make a breakthrough playing African music.
Paul Simon's hit album Graceland is living testimony to this, but African artistes have had remarkable success with one-off singles, all with overseas producers.
In the 1990s, Mory Kante had a big hit with Yeke Yeke and was followed by Cameroonian star Wes Modibo, who scored big with Alane.
The 1970s produced two internationally acclaimed songs from Africa - Manu Dibango's Soul Makossa and Fela Kuti's classic Lady - which presented opportunities for African music on the international club scene.
The then London-based Afro-Caribbean group Osibisa also caused a stir across Europe with its brand of afro funk and is undoubtedly the most resonating success by an African live act. But many will argue that though formed by Ghanaian saxophonist Teddy Osei, the Caribbean factor in the band played a big role in the overall Osibisa sound.
As for the 1960s, Hugh Masekela's Grazing in the Grass and Miriam Makeba's Pata Pata are the African hallmarks of that era. All are remarkable but their number is negligible compared with the success of Caribbean and Latin American music on the global scene.
With live music now widely in vogue, more African bands are battling for a place in the huge circuit of world music, but like in the case of recordings, the big money and recognition is in the mainstream music festivals.
Critics note that Africa needs to recreate itself musically speaking, and offer a youthful sound that is distinctively its own but with a pop structure, making it easily accessible to people from other cultures.
This is already happening, especially in South Africa, where Kwaito bears clear overtones of mbaqanga music of the Zulus, while Ghana is celebrating the birth of Hiplife , an urban youth hip hop genre that taps into the region's highlife music.
But East Africa still lacks a direction and its industry structure has hampered the development of music that has the right ingredients for the international market.
The story could have been different in the 1970s when a wave of experimental music lit up the Nairobi scene as musicians tried to develop a brand of urban music that straddled the borders between traditional Kenyan music and American soul and disco genres.
The more noteworthy results are heard in the song Fever by the late Ishmael Jingo, which was built around a James Brown type bass line and flavoured with a pulsating chakacha rhythm, all providing a good contrast to Jingo vocals that borrowed heavily from the James Brown-Wilson Picket style of singing.
Recorded in the late 1970s, the song has had a new lease of life after British music collector Duncan Brooker included it in his compilation of soul music recorded by African musicians in the 1970s.
THE UNIQUENESS OF JINGO'S recording is that it had a distinct African feel on the percussions but retained a strong urban feel.
Tanzania's Tatu Nane also had a strong impact on the fusion scene, but lacked a contemporary urban feel, leaving it struggling in the world music category.
The hip hop craze may be looking up again in the domestic market, but is widely seen as lacking truly competent musicians, especially instrumentalists.
The main criticism is that use of loops sold commercially worldwide has offered a lazy way out for hip-hop artistes, who simply sing or rap over existing US style backing tracks without putting creativity into the arrangement.
Another view is that most young urban artistes lack the working knowledge of Kenyan traditional music that would enable them to use it as the basis for experimental music.
"We need to get a handle on our music traditions and create a form that is uniquely ours while still understood by others," says Joseck Asikoye.
The attraction of benga is that it is live music that depends as much on the beat as on quality instrumentation and the revival of guitar-based music overseas offers a clear advantage for benga music bands.
It has worked for Extra Golden because it veers into a new territory where guitar formed the basis of music activity and the style of benga is a cause of fascination for audiences thinking out of the convention of dance or Westernharmony.
A former director of the EMI Hemisphere label, Gerald Seligman, once summed it up like this, "It has a mystique that is uniquely Kenyan."
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