BEAR'S REFLECTION
For myself as an artist, making the Mwana Mkala record was an intense working experience, a jump into the unknown, and a great lesson about music and intercultural activity. During the project, I worked as an artistic producer, practical producer, songwriter, arranger, singer, and guitarist. I learned a lot from many people, but the things learned from Kifimbo are especially countless. As a musician, such a deep dive into another musical mind is bound to have a strong effect on one’s musicianship. Kifimbo’s approach to songwriting is very inspiring. There is a certain lion-like bold, fearless aspect in the song-making technique, which basically involved improvising melodies with lyrics over a drum beat. This usually results in the songs being catchy, strong, and intuitively ”right”. This way of songwriting was especially insightful and interesting for me because it resembles my own style of songwriting, but I usually do not dare to go for it as boldly and loudly as Kifimbo. I tend to hum in gibberish instead of singing actual improvised lyrics in a big voice. After this work with Kifimbo, I also would like to learn to trust ongoing, constant elements in songwriting. Songs that are made for people, as I like to think my music to be, don’t need so many changes, if the basic thing, a beat, a melody, a vibe, is good. Indeed, a great lesson that Kifimbo taught me as a musician is the self-confidence and the trust in one’s own intuition, being mwana mkala. A trait I admire a lot about him is that it seems that all musical sounds he produces are ”ready for use”, real music. He didn’t really understand my idea of recording many vocal takes if there was not a clear mistake in the performance. When he was writing the final lyrics for the new songs, he didn’t overwrite anything, he just wrote the lines he would use in his lyric book. Whether he is singing or playing drums or conversing, there is no ”noodling” or half-practicing, he means what he says. I surely took a lot of influence from this, and it is something I still want to develop in my own artistry. On the other hand, the collaboration with Kifimbo also made me see the strengths of my own style of doing things. When I give time to trying different things, writing, and overwriting, it leaves more space to concentrate on details. Making good records is about recognizing the details that matter, intuitively, or through trying different possibilities.
There are certain similarities between what I learned from Kifimbo about mwana mkala songwriting to what I learned from Kikombe and the guys as a band member. When we were playing in rehearsals, in the studio, or during gigs, we always played with full intention, whatever the conditions were. This might also mean that on gigs the songs might suddenly take whole new directions, parts, and grooves, despite what we had agreed on in the rehearsals. This also reminds me of our performance style with my band Ursus Factory, but in the case of playing with Kifimbo and the band, instead of being surprisingly improvisational, it was just the standard of how to play music. Sometimes when I was stopping the music to give some comments in rehearsals, I felt like I was doing something weird, like quenching the fire or something. Indeed some things in music don’t need so much conversation, because music itself is a kind of conversation. This, of course, depends on the music; the style that we were playing fitted well for playing intuitively and through the use of improvisation. This might be due to the fact that it was based on some constant elements, unlike many Western styles where it’s crucial for all the musicians to agree beforehand how to play in order to be able to produce the music and its different parts as desired. Understanding the differences, the pros and cons of these approaches was a lesson learned, and I got better in evaluating the situations and the music at hand and to adapt to it in the right way, sometimes trusting the jam, sometimes stopping for a conversation. My conversation skills about music developed a great deal in the countless situations where I needed to agree on things in English and Swahili, things that are sometimes hard to address through words even in my own language. I learned to be clearer: sometimes the broken language forces you to simplify the message, which can lead to a better realization about what I really mean, clarifying it for myself in the process as well. With a fluent language, it’s easier to get stuck in semantics or mumbo jumbo, in the end not even knowing yourself what you are talking about.
As a record in the series of my productions, Mwana Mkala is surely a new kind of entity, because it consists of a completely another kind of music than my previous records. Also, it is an intercultural record, which makes it’s traits and meanings much more complex. Still, I recognize my own style in the structure of the album. I want my albums to have variance, and Mwana Mkala has many different vibes and feels. It is also quite old school, without too many digital elements. It features a lot of dry guitar sounds and some crispy fuzz leads, which I like to use. When making music in the studio, it is crucial to be able to make good, creative solutions with the equipment at hand. In Mtungi Studio I was operating with a different kind of equipment to what I’m used to. Combining the sounds of a multi-effect guitar pedal, a Korg synthesizer, and full percussion tracks, I got new ideas on sound combinations and post-recording arrangements.
As a Tanzanian afro-fusion record, I think Mwana Mkala is quite intact, regardless of the amount of different stylistic influences. It is also much more energetic than many other Tanzanian contemporary afro-fusion records, it has ”more fire”. This is because of Kifimbo´s singing, personality, and songwriting, that I tried to stay true to in all parts of the production, from the guitar sounds to the cover art. The significance of the record in the Tanzanian music scene remains to be seen, but I think the record has a lot of potential, which has been shown already. Both music videos have been playing on Tanzanian TV channels, and Kifimbo has also been invited to many radio programs to be interviewed. The song themes are very relevant in Tanzanian society, and especially the educational message of ”Simba” on HIV and the environmental themes of ”Tusikate Miti” has got people’s attention as songs of societal importance.
Looking back at the project it’s not easy to critique it or to say what should have been done differently, because the project happened so intuitively and there are not many similar projects/records to reasonably compare it to. For sure some things would have been easier if everything would have been planned before. For example, in all situations where we faced the situation of whether or not to enhance the project to include more songs or more videos, I was always faced with the dilemma of how much money I am willing and able to spend on the project. This caused no problems in the end, but if I would have had a clear budget for the project, I wouldn’t have had to ponder on the go. I didn’t really feel that we needed to rush things even though we made the whole thing in four months, but surely we could have spent more time. On the other hand, the record could have been made in even less time with efficient pre-production and plans, but in this case, it would not have been possible. If I were to go again to Dar Es Salaam to make a record, I could make better preparations, because now I have a good network of people who work in the creative field in Dar. That leads to what I think was the biggest success point of the project: that we made it possible in the first place. Considering that the starting point involved a Finnish musician, who had visited the country once before and a Tanzanian musician who has not recorded an album before, it seems that we must have done something right to come out with a full record, and to top up, a good intact record. I think that this success is the result of good communication.
COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY
Socially, nothing we did would’ve been possible without my countless conversations with Kifimbo about Tanzanian culture, our cultural differences, and the meanings that lie behind the many Swahili proverbs. My basic skill of Swahili, that was developed every day with the help of Kifimbo and the life among Swahili speakers, made the whole process more interesting, meaningful and I think it is fair to say, possible. Language is surely not the only aspect of social communication relevant to this project. Interpersonal and emotional skills are in test in a special environment like this, where you need to work together to achieve your goals. With Kifimbo, we did not only need to understand and trust each other: this kind of album process includes a tremendous amount of people, from bajaji drivers to rehearsal space owners, from musicians to graphic designers, from the officers that give permissions for video shooting in Bagamoyo old town to friends at the beach fire, whose company and good spirit make it possible to invent new songs.
To understand another culture, communication is the only way, but ironically it is usually also the obstacle. If we have spent years building the ways of communication and understanding with our family and close friends, and yet we still end up in misunderstandings and communicational problems daily, then how on earth are we to understand people from another culture with whom we hardly share a second language? I would quote Rasta Shadow again. The way I see it, intercultural communication takes time, patience, and persistence to develop to fruitful levels. Cultural differences are important. Whether you find them fascinating or scary, most importantly: they are there. They need to be respected, as any traits of human beings you are trying to communicate with. This resonates with Bhabha’s view on cultural diversity and cultural differences. Understanding creates empathy, enforces trust, and evaporates suspicion, which leads to better collaboration, communication, and nice Ethno music festivals, and it’s great, but understanding a culture is not an overnight project. In practice this might mean that when engaging in an intercultural project, one needs to be ready to take time to build the means to an end. Communicating with broken language or no language at all is a skill. Being able to converse meaningfully and happily about the most simple and fundamental things in life, which usually is the case when building intercultural bridges, is a skill. Cultural sensitivity, which means recognizing and respecting different cultural norms, habits, and ways of behavior, is a skill. Luckily these skills get better in action.
All this being said, intercultural collaboration is not only hard work and challenges. Learning about the difference is to learn about the familiar. Somehow seeing a foreign culture makes you understand your own. Seeing Kifimbo write a song about how isolated the culture has become in Tanzania made me think of how overtly isolated Finnish culture is. Being the slow one, only understanding half of the conversation for four months made me understand how much I love being able to take part in conversations and talk a lot. Also, it made me realize how non-Finnish speakers in Finland might feel. Seeing how good Tanzanian food made me feel made me think of what am I eating in Finland. Hearing Kikombe conjuring amazing sounds from any scrappy drum kit made me think of the essentials of music-making. Self-reflection and knowledge about one’s own identity and culture with its biases are very helpful in intercultural collaboration and good life.
Intercultural situations also point out the things that are universal and shared between different cultures. Fundamentals like family, food, and music are usual subjects of conversation when communicating on a limited vocabulary of common language. Sometimes I feel that this kind of experience helps me to see the forest instead of the trees. Also, human chemistry and friendship are not bounded by cultural differences. I do have a lot more in common with MAN Kifimbo than many representatives of my own culture. Then again, we kind of built our own afro-rock-reggae-fusion-rasta-bear-lion culture, with its own habits, norms, and even language, which we do share. Finally, I think that to collaborate with people, you don’t need to understand them completely. The comparison to close family works here also. In the core, it’s more about the will to understand and the honesty and openness that opens the path for meaningful communication, than the understanding itself, which I see as a goal, a skill to practice, a result of collaboration. But this is not to say that an open attitude and liking culturally diverse ”stuff” is enough, we must strive for a better understanding!
Communication is also about being present. Physical presence is one thing, but through meaningful and open communication with others, we can be present in spirit, which is the state of building memorable life. Life happens as situations. Certain people in a certain place and time, share moments and feelings, and these situations glide into new ones and turn into memories, and sometimes pieces of art that will not be and cannot be repeated. Of this dreamy philosophical argument, our album is a concrete example. It is the fruit of communication of us: I, Kifimbo, Kikombe, Balthazar, Shabo, Balaam, Chudo, Muu, Lenick, mzee Said, Ronnie, Rasta Shadow, Zanzi B, M-Motion Visual collective, Shadrack, Jimmy Mathias and a whole lot of other people who joined their creativity and time together to make a piece of art, that is in itself more than just a memory, more than the musical, social and intercultural factors that it derives from. It is, so to say, a culture product in the Third Space. It is like wine, made from grapes and refined by professional skill, but once it has been fermented and bottled, it comes something else even though it is still basically just grapes. And it supposedly gets better with time, which makes the music metaphor even better for an artist-researcher in love with half-a-decade old East African music. Even though someone would be crazy enough to make a presentation about the whole process and analyze all the different factors and influences that constitute Mwana Mkala, it is still something more than the aspects that constituted it; a new thing, a new sound, a new story with a future unknown. One of the reasons why I love to make music records is that once they have been made, they are kind of eternal. Even if it doesn’t raise any interest now (which I doubt), it is still there after fifty years for somebody from a future hybrid culture to find it and get excited about it, not unlike me when I found D.O. Misiani. I wonder if ol’ Daniel ever thought that his music might end up in the North in the hands of an enthusiastic rock musician/artist-researcher.
Music is a social art in its very nature, and surely communication is the key to music, but actually a better way to put it would be ”music is communication”. As presented in chapter 3, the music of the Mwana Mkala record did not emerge in a vacuum. The different influences of Tanzanian musical atmosphere and Kifimbo’s musical journey and creativity, colliding with my equivalent story in Finland resulted in this music. All these aspects are communication: a message-passing from person to person. As cultural heritage from the family (Zaramo dance/humppa), as pop music playing on the radio (soukous/Finnish rock), as musical subcultures that we identify ourselves with (reggae/punk), as music that our fellow musicians in our time near us make (afro-fusion/indie). I am not a great fan of seeing creativity as inventing something from nothing, at least in music. For me true creativity is that of a social nature, which, as has been said, is the profound nature of music. This kind of creativity doesn’t actually only draw or get influenced by the culture that precedes it, it grows from it. Like a tree grows from a seed or children from their parents. Who is going to blame children for being a copy of their parents?
Music and records are made in physical situations with certain conditions that come with it. Mwana Mkala sounds like Mtungi studio, Shabo’s multi-effect pedal, Ally’s percussion assortment, the Rode condenser microphone used for vocal recordings, Korg keyboard presets, my Tokai Stratocaster guitar, current Dar Es Salaam slang, the sweat in the studio, ugali and pilau (Tanzanian foods), Coca-cola, Kifimbo’s favorite brandy Valour, Finnish humppa, Tanzanian gospel, reggae, soukous, Zaramo, Makonde, rautalanka, friendship, fusion, and confusion. Now it is all in a package of a record for anyone to get inspired, annoyed, consoled, energized, confused, or flabbergasted by.
In my last interview with Kifimbo for this research through Whatsapp, I tried to get some memorable quotes about intercultural collaboration out of him. I asked him in different ways how does he see the effect of cultural differences in our collaboration. He kept answering shortly ”No effect!”. At the end of the interview, I tried my luck one last time. His reply is in the video below.
We are very happy with the record. Jah bless.
When it comes to how did the bear and the lion make an album together, there are two answers: communication is the key, and mwana mkala hadile sunga. Luckily both these pearls of wisdom were acquired in an early stage of our project with the help of one Rasta Shadow. On my first weekend in Dar, we went to Kigamboni beach in Dar Es Salaam, about two hours journey from our ghetto with public transport. We spent the night with Kifimbo’s rasta friends from Kigamboni and I got to know Rasta Shadow, a Zaramo rasta, a builder by profession. He kept repeating the phrase: ”communication is the key” all through the night in all kinds of contexts. On the same night we started jamming ”Mwana mkala”. Kifimbo and Shadow started to improvise a song over this Zaramo saying and I participated with some sort of beatboxing. Both phrases stuck to me and Kifimbo and we started repeating them daily. Communication truly is the key to any collaboration, not to mention intercultural collaboration in music. Intuitively self-evident, and confirmed by the literature sources reviewed in the chapter 2, communication is the fundament for any collaborative activity. The mwana mkala attitude, that could be translated to persistence, willpower, independence, and confidence, is the other key for getting good things done.
MWANA MKALA HADILE SUNGA
We were very determined while making this album. Even though we had not planned before that we would even make an album, we were joined by the mutual drive to make things happen in the time we had together. The mwana mkala attribute of independence was of great importance: nobody had told us what to do, when, where, or why. Surely this was my project for the university, but Global Music Master project guidelines give you the freedom to do almost anything and the only requirement is that the student himself learns about the subject he chooses and develops intercultural skills. I wanted something concrete out of this, and so did Kifimbo. As he said in the video interview done in the spring 2020 after the project, recording Mwana Mkala changed his situation as an artist and made him proud, because before, even though he could sing, he didn’t have a record to show that he is in it for real.
It wasn’t easy to make a full record in Tanzania in four months, and I am quite surprised by how we managed to do it and in such a good quality. This research covers extensively why and how everything happened as it did, but behind everything, there was a strong will. Will to make music, will to do things that matter, will to create something great. That is an attribute we share with Kifimbo. Looking back, the whole thing seems quite a peculiar phenomenon. It’s almost like we just got together with no plans and suddenly we are on the move, like the future Mwana Mkala album would have just forced us to take a path we didn’t ourselves even know where it would lead. I guess that hunters like, for example, a bear or a lion cannot know what they are hunting before actually going to the forest/jungle, but when the prey is sighted, they know what to do.
