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Figure 2.2. Artist-researcher dancing to Kinanda music with the brothers at Kinondoni getto

From left: artist-researcher Figure 1.3: on the final day of the fieldwork, Figure 1.4: before fieldwork Figure1.5: at usual work.

To position myself in this project, I will offer some background information on my pathway as a musician so far. I am a musician and a songwriter from Helsinki, Finland. Guitar has always been my main instrument, alongside with singing which I took up in my late teens to be a band frontman. I have been making songs, singing, and playing guitar since I was a boy and for the last five years or so my own music has been my main occupation besides studying in Sibelius Academy. These days my main act is a rock band called Ursus Factory which takes most of my time. Through the years I have been playing in a variety of bands and projects working with a wide range of music styles varying from spoken word jazz to playing wedding gigs in Finland and producing indie folk records. Lately I’ve been more into songwriting, producing and making content instead of, say, instrumentalism. I have worked with 10 published records either as a musician, songwriter, or producer before Mwana Mkala. 

1. INTRODUCTION

1.2 ABOUT THE BEAR

Background of the artist-researcher

 

For a long time I have had a special interest in African music. In 2012, I discovered the music of the Malian guitar legend Ali Farka Touré and his countryman, kora player Toumani Diabaté. Shortly after I came by Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke and through exploration to his influences I immersed myself in highlife, afrobeat, soukous, makossa, Congolese rumba, and so on. Ever since I have constantly web-explored music from all around Africa. The things most appealing to me tend to be sub-Saharan local popular music records roughly from the 50’s to 80’s and their stylistic contemporary equivalents and offsprings. African popular music of this era, that for many countries was the early years of independence, features a lot of guitar. These styles of music keep fascinating me. My first trip to Africa was in 2016, in Kenya and Tanzania. After that I’ve developed a special interest in East-African music, supported by my time spent in the region and thus better-than-nothing Swahili, which I prepped with a year-long language course at the University of Helsinki before my master project. Exposure to Kenyan and Tanzanian music and pop-culture also played an important role in my language skill preparation. 


I met Kifimbo for the first time in my 2016 stay in Tanzania, and already then we spent a lot of time together and co-wrote a song for the first time. I had every intention to come back one day and continue the collaboration, and this fieldwork was a great opportunity to do that.

 

Figure 2.1. Jamming the East-African classic "Sina Makosa" with Kikombe, Balaam, and Elisha. I singing this song in Swahili was usually entertaining to Tanzanians. 

Figure 1.6 The bear and the lion in 2016

 

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