The invisible side
Of our youth
Was pure radio waves.
NOTE: More on Radio Waves
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Congolese MUSIC: Franco's Tembe na Tembe
So Lingala has given us two songs, as far as one can tell, with the same title: Tembe na Tembe. The present one, by Franco Luambo Luanzo Makiadi and TP OK Jazz, was released in 1970. The second, by Bozi Boziana, a decade or more later. So be it.
[About the word Tembe: One translation that I have seen suggests that it means doubt or suspicion (as in a marriage or between lovers or friends)]
Franco's Tembe na Tembe is a prized oldie (though we never knew what the words meant), and has been a true companion, on and off, through life's uncertain detours and milestones. Long, indeed, have been its absences from our individually remembered pasts, as attentions shifted and trends ebbed and flowed with Time and age and travel and responsibility in the stifling analog era and the early digital years.
The song is tellingly nostalgic in its tone, playing now after all those years since one's true youth. This is a nostalgia which millennials will find hard to fathom. And playing it so long after it was last heard, a chance happening in itself for many (given all the distractions of modernity and work-life), is itself a nostalgic act. A nostalgic act so deeply evocative of days and places and things that one cannot quite clearly put into words and define for others. That is, evocative of slices of life that are now distinctly fuzzy and elusive and altogether inexplicably patchy, even for one and to oneself.
With its emphatically universal ring, this Tembe na Tembe hints, too, somehow, if you like, at things yet to come, and which we're glad to wait for -- not really knowing when or how they will, or if they will ever find us if they do. And I dare myself to suggest that this song, this Tembe na Tembe, should find a place in every interstellar voyager's back-pack when such a time truly comes, as I reckon it will.
Here below is the audio version (there is no video). It runs for 5:44 minutes, the last three seconds of which are pure silence:
The song starts on a low key, aptly suggesting a long journey ahead. Two male voices, the only distinct ones in the whole song, set it all off in perfect harmony and symmetry, warming up the aural spaces that the song clears and opens up as it moves along. Then the instruments kick in -- two guitars specifically, strummed, I reckon, by the very same vocalists. Tentatively at first, and then, rapidly, on to a frenzy of sound: led by the two guitars, and spiced with muffled percussion and drumming in the background. All interspersed with the singing-duo's melodic and commanding voices.
With all protocols thus observed, artistic boldness goes a notch higher, and a duet of voices and sounds ensues. But from 1:50 to 3:15, we have a glorious stringfest, led by Maestro Franco; indeed a frolic of heavenly strings plucked by fingers God himself can be proud of. Another fest, surely the last, is had from 4:25 to 5: 41. It closes with three seconds of pure silence, as already noted.
[About the word Tembe: One translation that I have seen suggests that it means doubt or suspicion (as in a marriage or between lovers or friends)]
Franco's Tembe na Tembe is a prized oldie (though we never knew what the words meant), and has been a true companion, on and off, through life's uncertain detours and milestones. Long, indeed, have been its absences from our individually remembered pasts, as attentions shifted and trends ebbed and flowed with Time and age and travel and responsibility in the stifling analog era and the early digital years.
The song is tellingly nostalgic in its tone, playing now after all those years since one's true youth. This is a nostalgia which millennials will find hard to fathom. And playing it so long after it was last heard, a chance happening in itself for many (given all the distractions of modernity and work-life), is itself a nostalgic act. A nostalgic act so deeply evocative of days and places and things that one cannot quite clearly put into words and define for others. That is, evocative of slices of life that are now distinctly fuzzy and elusive and altogether inexplicably patchy, even for one and to oneself.
With its emphatically universal ring, this Tembe na Tembe hints, too, somehow, if you like, at things yet to come, and which we're glad to wait for -- not really knowing when or how they will, or if they will ever find us if they do. And I dare myself to suggest that this song, this Tembe na Tembe, should find a place in every interstellar voyager's back-pack when such a time truly comes, as I reckon it will.
Here below is the audio version (there is no video). It runs for 5:44 minutes, the last three seconds of which are pure silence:
The song starts on a low key, aptly suggesting a long journey ahead. Two male voices, the only distinct ones in the whole song, set it all off in perfect harmony and symmetry, warming up the aural spaces that the song clears and opens up as it moves along. Then the instruments kick in -- two guitars specifically, strummed, I reckon, by the very same vocalists. Tentatively at first, and then, rapidly, on to a frenzy of sound: led by the two guitars, and spiced with muffled percussion and drumming in the background. All interspersed with the singing-duo's melodic and commanding voices.
With all protocols thus observed, artistic boldness goes a notch higher, and a duet of voices and sounds ensues. But from 1:50 to 3:15, we have a glorious stringfest, led by Maestro Franco; indeed a frolic of heavenly strings plucked by fingers God himself can be proud of. Another fest, surely the last, is had from 4:25 to 5: 41. It closes with three seconds of pure silence, as already noted.
POLITICS, URBAN DESIGN AND MUSIC: To Love or Not to Love Lagos ~ Singer Olamide's Take
In a song published on January 9, 2016 (and which has 1,666,176 YouTube hits right now), Baddo sings a heartfelt love song for his 'hometown', the great city of Lagos. So, what kind of city is this that he so genuinely loves, and invites us all to?
Lagos is big, big-time. It is vibrant, displaying what some would say is organized chaos [To those who fully understand the concept, incidentally, chaos is not the dirty word it may appear to be]. Inward-looking though it is -- as are Addis, Cairo, Cape Town, Dar-Es-Salaam, Johannesburg and Kinshasa -- it is Africa's epicentre of culture [art, apparel, film, language (pidgin), literature, music and identity] and SM entrepreneurship -- not to mention loud and to-the-hilt living.
And it has a huge reservoir of self-confidence for all that. It has no qualms about doing things its way, but the impression one gets is that the average citizen on the street feels let down by the "authorities".
Lagos City, observes Tomisin (2016), is currently home to some 20 million Lagosians. That, incidentally, is just under half of Kenya's population, and over half of Uganda's. Its metropolitan areas have a population density of over 20,000 per square mile. Indeed, Tomisin argues, Lagos remains Nigeria's "centre of excellence". But he also shares with us the grim images painted by one artist/designer (Olalekan Jeyifous) of a future Lagos overwhelmed by teetering 'skyscraper' shanties, ever-present rust, decay, structural fragility, ugliness -- and even angst (see more images, depicting/predicting extreme visual pollution, here).
But this pessimistic picture is not reflected in Monty Mumford's 2014 article titled "Booming Lagos, Smart City". He argues there that while Lagos faces 'epic challenges' in infrastructural development (especially transportation), there are reasons to have faith in the future. Specifically, the Eko Atlantic project will be key to the city's "regeneration". But the reality is that the project is designed with the rich at the centre of attention, not the poor. The 12 million additional residents Lagos is expected to absorb in the not-too-distant future are not going to make matters easier by any stretch of the imagination.
In Vision 2015-2030, Orlean Invest is also optimistic that the Eko Atlantic Project is "the future economic hub of Lagos City as well as Nigeria". But this optimism is counter-intuitive to Mumford's other observation that the poorest in Lagos "live in fetid floating slums".
In a 2014 article in the NYT titled "What Makes Lagos a Model City", Prof. Seth Kaplan of Johns Hopkins University observed that "Lagos, which until recently was known as one of the world's most difficult cities to govern, seems to have turned a corner." He added:
READ: Francesca Perry and Chris Michael "How is Lagos Changing? Share Your Stories".
ALSO READ: Open City Lagos
I think that Baddo Olamide, a native of Lagos State, speaks with song to this generally positive trend; and more specifically to what it has wrought already in concrete ways. He has been witness to all that with his own artiste's eye and as a regular resident of the city.
So, in his I Love Lagos lyrics, he sings and makes certain categorical declarations and retorts. In the process, he makes point-by-point rebuttal of Jeyifous's sickly vision:
"...Oyingbo ekolowa oyinbo
Oyingbo why you speaking oyinbo
Lagos is big, big-time. It is vibrant, displaying what some would say is organized chaos [To those who fully understand the concept, incidentally, chaos is not the dirty word it may appear to be]. Inward-looking though it is -- as are Addis, Cairo, Cape Town, Dar-Es-Salaam, Johannesburg and Kinshasa -- it is Africa's epicentre of culture [art, apparel, film, language (pidgin), literature, music and identity] and SM entrepreneurship -- not to mention loud and to-the-hilt living.
And it has a huge reservoir of self-confidence for all that. It has no qualms about doing things its way, but the impression one gets is that the average citizen on the street feels let down by the "authorities".
Lagos City, observes Tomisin (2016), is currently home to some 20 million Lagosians. That, incidentally, is just under half of Kenya's population, and over half of Uganda's. Its metropolitan areas have a population density of over 20,000 per square mile. Indeed, Tomisin argues, Lagos remains Nigeria's "centre of excellence". But he also shares with us the grim images painted by one artist/designer (Olalekan Jeyifous) of a future Lagos overwhelmed by teetering 'skyscraper' shanties, ever-present rust, decay, structural fragility, ugliness -- and even angst (see more images, depicting/predicting extreme visual pollution, here).
But this pessimistic picture is not reflected in Monty Mumford's 2014 article titled "Booming Lagos, Smart City". He argues there that while Lagos faces 'epic challenges' in infrastructural development (especially transportation), there are reasons to have faith in the future. Specifically, the Eko Atlantic project will be key to the city's "regeneration". But the reality is that the project is designed with the rich at the centre of attention, not the poor. The 12 million additional residents Lagos is expected to absorb in the not-too-distant future are not going to make matters easier by any stretch of the imagination.
In Vision 2015-2030, Orlean Invest is also optimistic that the Eko Atlantic Project is "the future economic hub of Lagos City as well as Nigeria". But this optimism is counter-intuitive to Mumford's other observation that the poorest in Lagos "live in fetid floating slums".
In a 2014 article in the NYT titled "What Makes Lagos a Model City", Prof. Seth Kaplan of Johns Hopkins University observed that "Lagos, which until recently was known as one of the world's most difficult cities to govern, seems to have turned a corner." He added:
"Even though it remains a slum-ridden and largely impoverished metropolis... it [Lagos] has seen steady improvement in its governance for over a decade [since 1999]. The government has enhanced public transportation, cleaned up streets, upgraded the business environment and bettered the lives of its inhabitants."And he concluded:
"So Nigeria, of all places, may be pointing the way to a strategy by which fragile states might begin to succeed: Devolve more power to cities from their corrupt and overcentralized national governments".This positive prognosis was more recently echoed in a 2016 article by Francesca Perry and Chris Michael.
READ: Francesca Perry and Chris Michael "How is Lagos Changing? Share Your Stories".
ALSO READ: Open City Lagos
I think that Baddo Olamide, a native of Lagos State, speaks with song to this generally positive trend; and more specifically to what it has wrought already in concrete ways. He has been witness to all that with his own artiste's eye and as a regular resident of the city.
So, in his I Love Lagos lyrics, he sings and makes certain categorical declarations and retorts. In the process, he makes point-by-point rebuttal of Jeyifous's sickly vision:
"...Oyingbo ekolowa oyinbo
Oyingbo why you speaking oyinbo
Oyingbo you dey lagos to oyingbo
If i carry you go banana
My guy you go love lagos
You go love lagos"
He mentions other places, people and things, too, he "could carry you go", and you would love Lagos: Elegushi, Police, Ikedja, Badagri, Ikorodi, Epe, VGC. And there's "oh no hustle", he claims, when you ride through his city. So, indeed, your love would only grow after all these experiences that he suggests we should have.
The sung lyrics are even more lyrical than the written, I find. That's the power of good sound and voice. Perhaps that is because, as I keep telling my students, the ear is more generous than the eye. The singer, resting his case, concludes after all this:
"You cannot deny you no see
You go love Lagos oh"
Here below is the video. It is has very optimistic and upbeat images (of various slices of Lagos) and aurally matching sounds. The chorus is lovely. This is the best music video about an African city that I've heard. It is sung with unquestioning and even protective/ possessive love and passion. The sites(sights) and sounds we see and hear are so infectiously evocative of a living city evolving toward the dreams inside the chronicler's/troubadour's (i.e. Baddo's) head -- and inside all of the dwellers' heads. Yambo says, "Love it all":
Watch Olamide's "I Love Lagos" Video
CLICK: I Love Lagos Lyrics
He mentions other places, people and things, too, he "could carry you go", and you would love Lagos: Elegushi, Police, Ikedja, Badagri, Ikorodi, Epe, VGC. And there's "oh no hustle", he claims, when you ride through his city. So, indeed, your love would only grow after all these experiences that he suggests we should have.
The sung lyrics are even more lyrical than the written, I find. That's the power of good sound and voice. Perhaps that is because, as I keep telling my students, the ear is more generous than the eye. The singer, resting his case, concludes after all this:
"You cannot deny you no see
You go love Lagos oh"
Here below is the video. It is has very optimistic and upbeat images (of various slices of Lagos) and aurally matching sounds. The chorus is lovely. This is the best music video about an African city that I've heard. It is sung with unquestioning and even protective/ possessive love and passion. The sites(sights) and sounds we see and hear are so infectiously evocative of a living city evolving toward the dreams inside the chronicler's/troubadour's (i.e. Baddo's) head -- and inside all of the dwellers' heads. Yambo says, "Love it all":
Watch Olamide's "I Love Lagos" Video
CLICK: I Love Lagos Lyrics
Monday, December 19, 2016
MUSIC (Tanzania): Vanessa Mdee Stars in Cash Madame
The sound clip with which the Cash Madame video starts is from another song, Juu, which Vanessa (a.k.a. Vee Money) sang with fellow Tanzanian called Jux. It is a sly marketing gimmick for Juu, which you won't recognize if you haven't heard the song. And Juu, as connoisseurs will notice or remember, is a blatant undoing (deletion, even) of One More Night, its fore(shadow), in which Jux clumsily appears, but not with Vanessa. It is all rather tell-tale.
Cash Madame's opening images are unreal. Forget about 'em. The arrival in broad daylight of four skimpily-dressed beauties in a pink, convertible Mercedes, armed only with a pistol and a metal bat and overwhelming harmlessness -- it's unreal. To fix, thusly armed, to rob a bunch of hard-core goons of their hoard of hard-fought cash (there u r) -- it's hilarious. And then, and then, to get away with it without a sweat (without a barrage of four-letter words and finger-flicking chasing after 'em) -- forget it. Never happened!
The real treat begins soon enough, though, 50 seconds into the video, with Vanessa the obvious heart of the party. It's all make-believe for Cash Madame, who has more dough than time to figure out how best to spend it. So, unlimited fun is to be had, day into night, without a worry, or hurry. And the fun images that float to-and-fro before our very own eyes are indeed fun to watch. A black 'dame' in flowing blonde hair, her curves all in the right places, charmingly all-smiles, sits on that hula-hoop of a thing and precariously swings -- hanging and turning by a "thread" from an invisible ceiling -- all to the tunefully 'dutiful' refrain of "Cash Madame". It's all a thing!
Eye-catching, almost still-images of all the goings-on leave a lasting impression of hauteness, cat-like coolness and all-round fashionista demeanor. It's like Cash Madame and her friends were all out for a weekend splash on select photo-shoot locations downtown. We're let in on the act after the fact.
While the video displays considerable creativity, the vocals and the other sounds are not attention-grabbing. They do not soar. They are modest. But they blend well into the bigger scheme of things, and the choreography of ever-shifting feline images is masterful. In the end, what stands out is that; that is, the artistry of body motion cloaked in elegant female voices.
I think Cash Madame secures Vanessa's status as the leading African songstress in 2016. She's has had three hits: Niroge, Juu and Cash Madame (Dume Suruali, on the other hand, isn't "so fun"). All this in a year when others dimmed, despite impressions: Yemi Alade (despite much activity), Tiwa Savage, Seyi Shay, Simi, D'ija and Skalled. More broadly, there was limited evidence of top-notch diva creativity out of Southern and Eastern Africa. Arguably second to Vanessa in 2016 was Nigeria's electrifying Lola Rae. Uganda's Shebbah also stood out in a consistent and remarkable way.
CLICK: Cash Madame Lyrics
Sunday, December 18, 2016
A Thought ~ 9: Nature's Protector
If you are on top of the food chain,
As you are,
You can certainly choose what not to
Eat, or kill -- or let die
At your own proverbial hands.
You are,
You were born to be, a protector.
Be one!
As you are,
You can certainly choose what not to
Eat, or kill -- or let die
At your own proverbial hands.
You are,
You were born to be, a protector.
Be one!
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