Kutandara mstudio part:11 ANOTHER WAY OF CREATING A NEW BRAND OF MUSIC Coming up with a new genre of music,or just a brand or style of music that can be called yours is not easy.The majority of musicians are content with just playing along a style or brand created by another musician,hazvina kuipa futi. MIXING COKE&FANTA TO CREATE A NEW BRAND If you mix coke and fanta you have created a new drink that is neither coke nor fanta,its a new drink that needs a new name,the same concept also applies in music.If you analyse some musicians styles or brands you can really figure out the engridients that were combined to create the style. I want to start by analysing one of my favourite African musicians: LUCKY DUBE: (a)Lead vocals: Everytime i heard Lucky Dube sing he sounded like someone i heard before but i was not sure,then on one interview i saw he came to the interview putting on a Peter Tosh t/shirt,since i have a massive collection of reggae i listened to Peter Toshs music and picked out that Lucky Dubes vocal style on his reggae music sounded 100% like Peter Tosh,the way he pulled his words especially at the end of his phrases is 100% Peter Tosh,but its difficult to notice because Lucky fused his style with other s.african elements that are worlds apart from Reggae.The only part of his vocals that was not Peter Tosh style was his style of singing Falsetto(that high female like voice)which i am pretty sure that he took it from Steve Kekana.So i terms of his lead vocals i can hear 95% Peter Tosh and 5% Steve Kekana.On one of his interviews which is on youtube Lucky Dube admitted that he got into reggae because of his love of Peter Toshs music (b)Back vocals: His back vocals were undoubtedly inspired by Bob Marleys three backing vocals trio of Rita Marley,Marcia Griffits and Judy Mowatt,who were known as the I-threes.Remember Lucky also used 3ladies. (c)Keyboards: His keyboards were undoubtedly S.african.That wailing keyboard which he used a bender is not found anywhere in the world except in S.a,that keyboard made his reggae totally different from Jamaican reggae.Its the keyboard you hear in pansula&other S.african styles.The organ was also played in a very S.african Mbaqanga style which is very synonimous with Moses Ngwenya,a.k.a Black Moses of the group Soul brothers. (d)The drums fills(rolls) Luckys drum fills style is one element that i think his first drummer created,or there must be an interesting story behind that style because its totally un-Jamaican and very interesting. Normal Jamaican roots reggae drummers are not busy and fancy,the longest drum fills(which are not even that long futi)are the ones they do on the intros and when introducing the first vocals,inside the song Reggae drummers usually just sit on the groove,sometimes just hitting the crush only instead of a normal drum fill,or just a small drum fill. But Lucky Dubes drum fills are very very busy,with double kicks and all.The percussion,especially on his first albums were also very busy. Now to sum up Lucky Dubes style,i came up with these elements -Peter Tosh -Steve Kekana -The I-Threes -Pansula -Mbaqanga If you analyse a number of artists you will notice the elements that formed their styles.The great Jimi Hendrixs vocal style was 100% Bob Dylan,his guitar style had elements of B.b King,only that he developed it much more further and ended up with a whole new crazy style. Tuku s style has our traditional mbira style as the dominant force,then some mbaqanga and a few afro jazz elements. Zig zag band fused our own traditional mbira guitar with reggae and created a new form of reggae which they called Chigiyo. So if you are thinking of creating a new sound,you might consider fusing 2 or more different styles. When you are ready to record the fusion see you at the monolio groove garage,the small place with a big sound. monoliostudios
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 04:55:05 +0000
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