The beach in front of the venue.

Booed of the decks at Kendwa Rocks

i was pretty excited - go out and play a gig on an idyllic white sand beach with a good sound system in Zanzibar. My friend, colleague and camera man from the documentary I'm working on and I rented a jeep and set out across Unguja (the real name for Zanzibar island) after finishing a long day doing several interviews. It was my first time out of town proper (aside from our daily jaunts to Bububu for at the coach's house) and I loved it! Coconut palms, banana trees, red earth, sky, sun, lots of people out on their way home, Tanzanian soukous on the radio. Work was done, life was good and we were going to a party.

We arrived about an hour and a half later, parked, walked down to the beach and said hello to DJ Yusuf, the resident DJ. Actually, he is the director of Busara Promotions and does this party in different places on a monthly basis. Then it was out to the beach, which is all of 2 minutes walk away, to check out the sunset. If I've ever been to a stereotypical tropical paradise - that was it. Totally transparent turquoise water, white, fine sand, dhows anchored a short way off, palm trees stretching out over the beach, a huge sky with a few clouds to make the sunset interesting. seemed like all was in place for a great night.

I played a one hour set of some kind of chill stuff that I never get to play in any other situation, like oumou sangare, the cotton belly remix of "by your side," by Sade, some dub from African dope records, "eu sou favela," by both Seu Jorge and the original by Berra da silva, ursula rucker, gnawa diffusion, Daddy Ous, Khaled. Then I had to stop to get some dinner. then people started showing up - tourists and locals and people from Stone Town and Dar es Salaam as well. It seemed like that was the most happening event that night and everybody was there. An interesting mix. Mostly locals.

Yusuf played tons of Bongo Flava, some new school rai stuff, blinged out american hip hop, a track or two of kwaito, a few reggaeton tracks, soukous - basically all of the elements of Bongo Flava. The crowd knew the majority of the tracks. He didn't really mix tracks, but selected them - well. He really knows his crowd well.

i got a bit worried that things weren't gonna go well for me - it was starting to seem like the time that I played in Dakar with Gee Bayss from Pee Froiss. There, they alternate between sets of techno/trance/hi NRG, Mbalax, reggae, ragga and hip hop. but, there are tunes that work....and his responsibility is to play those songs that work. Not the most inspiring scene. The women starting showing up around 2 am and then men a bit later. That was even late for Rio standards. Eventually it was kind of sort of full. The women danced alone and watched themselves in the floor to ceiling mirrors that lined one wall of the dance floor. Weird. Really weird. The men tried to step up to them, but they weren't having it. Then the music would change and the dance floor would empty or fill, depending. I managed to keep a crowd for 2 tracks and then I changed (! Oh my god, a new style!). They never came back to dance and eventually I had to give it back to gee bayss. and he knew just the tracks to play to make it work.

The other night was similar. Here is my set list (this set lasted about 25 minutes):

Set List
1. Funk n Lata - Lata's Groove
2. Team Shadetek - Brooklyn Anthem
3. Digitaldubs Sound System - Babylonia feat. M7
4. Daara J - Bopp sa Bopp
5. African Beat Riddim
6. Black Alien - Estilo do Gueto
7. Tata Pound - Badala
8. A Filial - Truth and Rights Riddim
9. Pompidou - Synthesizer Voice
10. John Wayne - Call the Police
11. Beelow - Call the Police feat. David Banner
12. DJ Shadow - Walkie Talkie
13. Afu Ra - D & D Soundclash
14. Barrington Levy - Collie Weed
15. Admiral Tibet - Leave People Business Alone
16. Freddie Cruger - Runnin from Love (Instrumental)


The venue and yours truly (sweating).

The crowd had commentary for each and every one of my tracks. So did the lone Brazilian guy who came over talking to me about his computer and this and that (all in portuguese) and was I using live and just kept talking and talking, but at least he liked the music. One guy asked me if I was playing music for myself or for the crowd. Hmm, good question. But, I'll get to that later. Then, he made it his duty to let me know whether or not he liked each and every track. Others gestured or said things I didn't understand in Swahili, but that I knew weren't elogies. These guys were the Bongo Flava/blinged out set. the dancefloor emptied and people seemed to be observing me with very much less then benign looks. It seemed like there was a vacuum that was sucking people out of there. The vibe came down a huge notch in energy. I tried to work with it and give them what they might be able to identify with...but still within my sphere of aesthetics. After all, I was the DJ, wasn't I? But, the possibilities seemed to narrow down to a small handful of tracks and even then I'd just plain lost the attention of all but the drunk guys who hadn't even noticed that the DJ had changed.

At least there was the small crowd of reggae guys who were all peace and love. But even that was pretty silly. Sure, they liked some some of the tracks that I played, but was it for the right reason? Surely it wasn't for how well I mixed from one song to the next seemlessly or my clever use of EQ and FX. Or was it that I connected tracks astute lyrical references, killing de sound bwoy dem wid it? I have a feeling that their reaction would have been the same had a jukebox been randomly selecting the tracks with a pre-set cross fade on default. They shouted, "Yes Dread I DJ," or some such nonsense and skanked away with their bottles of beer. the complaining guy said that Afu Ra wasn't really reggae. I told him it's reggae mixed with hip hop. He said it's not hip hop either. I just shrugged. I couldn't win. Barrington Levy was just okay. Play something different. Why don't you play the music that we want to hear? Admiral Tibet was too old. To make matters worse during the whole time, the sound dipped in volume and half of the sound system went out. We never did figure out what caused it. But, that went on for my whole set. Another guy asked me if I didn't know how to work the equipment. Finally, Yusuf came back and asked if he could put the next rack on, as people were starting to leave and asking what was going on with the DJ. I happily agreed. He put on some soukous and returned to playing a track from its start to finish and everybody was magically dancing and enjoying the party once again.

So, really, what happened there? Is it that I suck as a DJ? Is my taste just plain bad? Or was it the wrong party for me to play at? Do they just not know how to appreciate good music? All of that and more? Am I just way off? Do I have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about/DJing?

It is interesting to note that many of the modern urban international ghetto favela shanty town barrio beatbox whatever the fuck you want to call it kind of musics that are principally created and consumed in low income pockets around the world tend to lack sophisticated production techniques. They are produced on computers with minimal external gear - flat reference monitors, quality microphones and preamps. or, fuck, for that matter even a microphone stand. One studio I know of in Rio uses a refridgerator and masking tape as a mic stand (I wonder if he turns the fridge off when he records?).

Yet, this "low quality" music sells like crazy and is enjoyed to the utmost by tons of people. so, why do so many from the west, or the "developed" world, europe, america, japan wherever, go on about how unrefined it is and IF they mixed it with their traditional roots sounds, it would be more interesting. But, why the hell should they learn to program their Yamaha DX7s beyond selecting cheesy preset flute sounds if everyone is buying it in loads and everybody is shaking their ass to it? Are even more people going to shake their ass if they have a real flute and a few variations in the drum loops? I don't think so.

But, just for the sake of argument, if audiences were educated about the existence of music outside of their comfort/acquaintance zone wouldn't the array of musical offererings in the market/radio/tv/film/disco/minivan/bus/other modes of public transport be much wider, richer, deeper? I don't know........

Honestly, I can't stand to hear that fucking rimshot or that reggaeton all purpose drum loop one more time. So, yeah, I guess at the core of it all, I'm playing for myself......or at least staying as true to myself as I can. If that means that I get booed off the decks, well, then, so be it. Does that mean I'm selfish? Geez, I even played that gig for free.........