Half of Mwana Mkala’s songs were Kifimbo’s old material, half of the songs we wrote together. Here I’m going to open up our collaborative songwriting, which also gives insight to Kifimbo´s methods that he had used for the pre-written songs.

Our songwriting process with Kifimbo went on generally like this: Everything starts with just jamming or an invention of a catchphrase, and then jamming. Whether the seed of the song was a cool line like ”Mwana mkala hadile sunga” (the hunter doesn’t eat spinach - the persistence will be rewarded) or two cool guitar chords, the biggest part of the composition is done while jamming. Through jamming, the song starts to emerge when improvised lines and parts get more fixed with repetition. After a while, the jam will turn into a song, often sung in gibberish, without lyrics, or some random words. This is the time to take up a pen and paper and start to think about what you want to say. Hopefully, by this time there is a catchphrase or some melodic/rhythmic idea for the vocal part to get started. If not, this point might be hard, for a great song has emerged but there is no idea what to sing about in it. Usually, when I write songs with my rock band Ursus Factory, the process goes the same way.

On guitar, Kifimbo usually finds a chord progression he likes and sticks to it for the whole song. For example, Nataka Kucheza started emerging this way. First, he would get the C-F-G-F going on a guitar and then start singing over it, forming the chorus, and then the verse. Later on in the songwriting process, this continuum might be interrupted with an intro, outro, or some kind of interlude, most likely one of a rhythmical nature. Chords will be matched to the rhythm of the interlude, which might mean a slight interruption of the otherwise always ongoing chord progression of the song. This kind of ongoing cycle can be heard very well on the record in the songs 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9. 

This is where our songwriting differs from each other. Even though I also base most of my musical expression on listening and jamming, working with Kifimbo made me realize that my natural way of perceiving and writing music focuses more on some kind of a ”linear” form than an ongoing cycle. My songs are usually following some kind of pattern of different parts than can change drastically in terms of melody, harmony, and rhythm. The songs on the album that include more of my contribution in the writing process tend to have more changes in the harmony, for I quite instinctively hear some changes fitting in the songs. I tend to write A- and B-parts, bridges, and intros as different entities that come one by one all in their turn. 

Kifimbo also thinks of the music in different parts, most often chorus, verse, and some solos, but they seem more like different ”gears” on the same basic cycle, maybe interrupted a few times with some sort of interlude or hits. This kind of difference in musical esthetic is familiar to me from some of my other collaborations with African musicians also. Nigerian musicologist Laz E. N. Ekwueme proposes an idea of ”essential” and ”nonessential” elements in his article Concepts of African Music Theory to analyze the form of African music. The essential and nonessential elements are both divided into constant and variable sub-categories. This theory draws an image of music that has some elements that are constantly going on with other elements varying over it (1974).

When making the songs together with Kifimbo I tried to keep it in mind not to interrupt a nice ongoing cycle when it’s as it’s best. On some fitting occasions, I proposed some of my ”mzungu chords”.