MWACHA MILA NI MTUMWA is a proverb that means, he that abandons his culture is a slave (TRANSLATED FOR KENYANS THAT DONT SPEAK SWAHILI)
Kenya Beat Battle is a bi monthly event where upcoming music
producers and beat makers compete before a panel of judges and an audience.
Last Sunday was the host of the third edition of Kenya Beat Battle and many
aspiring music producers participated, including myself. The event was also
attended by Kenya’s top musicians and producers including Delvin and Polycarp
of Sauti Sol, Kenya’s top producer Provoke and Wangeci, the latest illest rapper in the 254 whom I personally
think is going to go far if she mixes her art with good business skills. The
judging panel consisted of Saint P,
a top gospel music producer, Dj Krowbar,
top gospel DJ and Michelle also a
gospel rapper. This event is the only of its kind in Kenya and I must applaud
Michael Mukama aka Othole Fruityloops,
founder of NYNP and a top gospel
music producer in Kenya for this great initiative. This is because breaking
ground in the arts is never easy and when one is in their very early stages,
they desperately need opportunities to try out their products on a live
audience and to just put their names out there. I say this with authority from
my work as a session drummer, band member and art enthusiast for a decade now.
Everything good has room to become better. That is why I partly
write this, to give a public opinion about an idea so great. What I never
understand with most competitions in Kenya is always the judging panel. My idea
is that if you are holding a writing competition, let good writers be the judges.
If you have a cooking competition, don’t have a dancer in the judging panel,
however good cooks they are or how closely related cooking and dancing are. I wasn’t
pleased by the presence of that particular rapper as a judge because she’s
known for rapping not making beats. She should have attended on a different
capacity, maybe as a scout for beats and producers. DJs work with beats all the
time but as DJ Rick said, DJs need to learn the art of music production and
related stuff. Most Kenyan and international DJs as we all know have very
little or no musical knowledge and therefore, the choice for this event wasn’t right
for me because he is not known for even remixing tracks. Moving on.
For the first time, the organizers saw it good to have every
contestant present what they called “a
unique Kenyan Beat”. That made me glad because I am constantly worried at
the rate at which we are losing our musical culture as a country. I was
expecting the unique Kenyan Beat to be some kind of a base to judge the
contestants since I assumed that this event was also promoting the Kenyan sound.
I don’t know what the organizers’ stand is about this matter and I’m afraid
this convo is starting to bChakacha, Ohangla, Isukhuti and all that
ancient tribal stuff, Keya has got more recent sounds like Mugithi, Benga and even more recently Kapuka, Genge, Boomba and even most recent Kapungala, Afrock, Bengenge, Gepuka and so on. The judges however didn’t
consider any of that. The unique Kenyan Beat was played first in the list, as a
formality and everyone that had a uniquely Kenyan sounding beat was eliminated
in not more than the 2nd round. For this category I made an Isukhuti beat for the old popular gospel
song from Western Kenya, “Unijaze Roho”.
Maybe it didn’t sound good but there was no comment about it in relation to
authenticity and Kenyan sounds. Instead I was told about arrangement and accused
of sampling too much which by the way, I don’t even know how to do. All my
tracks are arranged note by note, even in complex patterns like Drum ‘n’ Bass. I’m
a drummer so I arrange each note to try to sound almost like I would play them
live.
e more complicated than I expected. Anyway, besides
So the contest went on, heat after heat, people got
eliminated. Very modern trance and electronic music which borrows a lot from
African drum rhythms in the climax finally was eliminated to pave way for Hip
Hop and Crank. At this stage I thought it was a Hip Hop beat competition so I took
a soda break. When I came back, the judges were lecturing the finalists on how
to sound Kenyan *facepalm* I know. They put so much emphasis on how to be
authentic and gave examples of how every big musician in Nigeria doesn’t sound
like they are from another country. The contest progressed and finally the guy
that sounded most like he’s the official producer for
Rick Ross won.
The winner was a very good producer. His beats were very well
engineered but not so musical in my opinion. Maybe that’s because I come from a
musical school of thought believing that the new wave of Hip Hop has very
little to do with the traditional fundamentals of music. There is only one
theme and the whole process is on a constant plane of excitement. But again,
that was not a music battle; it was a beat battle so I should just shut up
right now.
I write from my perspective on how things should go but
there is also the natural way that does things in growing industries like ours.
Like my good friend Gregg Tendwa says, copying and duplicating is good and ok.
He encourages anyone that is able to copy and duplicate to do so in large
quantities. Because when we have copied and duplicated enough, we will have so
much and I add, the fake will fall off and the remaining ones will forge their
own ways and we will enter a new stage of good quality and originality.
Below i have for you my three tracks that i made specifically for this competition.
BONUS
I only wish the majority would strive to at least promote
African because the fact is, we are always behind of what is happening in the
West. So when we copy their music, try to sound and speak like them, they are
in our backyards learning out stuff.
We are busy wearing fake
Louis Vuitton and they are busy
taking our
Maasai Shukas on the highest fashion runways. We are busy trying to
sound all American when
Rick Ross is trying to rap in Swahili. Our singers try
to sound like
Beyonce and
Destinys child just released “When Jesus Says Yes,
Noody Can Say No”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-4PngwwcWU
Ok, I go to feed my dogs because I need to carry one them to
a high end fashion event next week.
