Thailand to Timbuktu,
CD Review
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It was bound to happen... and it IS happening... little by little. The new cultural democracy fostered by the likes of MySpace, FaceBook, and YouTube is slowly bearing fruit... which is no surprise. When record companies crumble, after all, something will rise in its place, likely something very similar to what precipitated the crash in the first place. Flowers love ashes. What IS surprising, though, is that that democracy is crossing borders, to the unmediated delight of all of us who care about successful cultural syntheses. Maybe there IS some hope for our fragile planet of excitable primates after all.
So forget the band's lame name (btw I do offer a band-naming service at very reasonable rates). Forget the Shaft-like tough guy 'Makmende' ('make my day') viral video bad-acting mock-movie-trailer showcase for their song 'Ha He' that rocketed off the U-tube charts... consider the short-attention-span source. Forget the PR rap about how these guys deserve a scoring handicap since Kenya has power blackouts three days a week. That's pure, uh... exaggeration. Sure the power goes out once in a while, but nothing compared to Ethiopia... or even Tanzania. Kenya's pretty civilized... by sub-Sahara African standards at least.
Let's just consider the music. The pop music world is currently 'populated' (pun intended) by many diverse genres that seem to have little to do with one another, with even the best of it somehow lacking in something... something important... something unexplainable. But taken as a whole pop music is incredibly rich and diverse, an incredible story of cultural evolution over the last fifty years, if not longer. The history of the music by American blacks is more clear and concise, from gospel to blues to soul to hiphop, a tale of cultural self-discovery that has yet to reach its final chapter. And now a quantum leap has occurred, a leap across borders.
If combination is the essence of creativity, then that is exactly what 'Just a Band' has accomplished with '82'- the year band members Blinky, Dan and Jim were all born btw. The album opens with “Save My Soul”, an ethereal trance-like chant with its roots in pure gospel- 'you're gonna save my soul...I've been inside too long... you're gonna take me home'. Many Westerners might be surprised at the influence of gospel music in Africa and especially the African diaspora in the Caribbean, such it usually rates no street cred behind such trendy catchwords like Afro-Pop, Afro-Beat, etc., but the influence is there and strong. “Ha-He” is the funky epic rocker that inspired the 'Makmende' story, a killer tune, though the lyrics are incomprehensible except for a few references to 'defying gravity', no big deal for a Clint Eastwood-inspired superhero. “Extra” completes the killer trilogy, a playful childlike hip-hop that shows a wonderful sarcastic edge to their streetwise intellect- 'I wanna' be darker... thinner... better... cooler... wiser...'. These guys are wise beyond their circumstances, and their English is good, giving us a rare insightful look into the mindset of young modern- and most importantly intelligent- Africans.
“Kaa Ridho” is a song sung in Swahili, a kind of afro-rap, with some nice piano, while “Migingo Express”, also in Swahili, is more Afro-pop, with some Dylanesque harp, but the album is bogging down a bit at this point. “Usinibore” brings it right back with some trancey 'tronic existential chanting- 'Just because I'm an African with black skin... don't tell me what I can and can't do... I can change the world'. “Sunrise” continues in the same vein – yes, THAT vein- hypnotic, conga-laced afro-trance- 'all I want is to see your face changing... sun rising', but that's as close as the band gets to a love song. “Huff + Puff” is a bouncy electronic number with a catchy disco beat, and “Uko Mbele” plays for some commercial cache with lyrics like 'can I walk in the rain with you?', but the album has pretty much shot its wad by this point. The black-eyed phea-male vocals on the next two songs- “Forever People(Do It So Delicious)” and “Stay”- are good enough, but don 't really move the album forward, just philler. Ditto “BoogieDeeBweet”, an an electronic instrumental afterthought. That's the beauty of laptop listening- delete buttons.
This band's meat-and-potatoes (or chicken masala maybe?) is their successful combination of electronica and hiphop. The icing on the cake is their street-wise intellectuality that goes way beyond the boring pidgin poop that's become the norm for foreign bands... or hiphop, either, for that matter. Electronica needs an edge. Hiphop needs some smarts. Neither needs so much 'tude. These guys pull it off. That's '82' by JAB ('Just a Band'). Hardie K says check it out. 05/18/10
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