A good day

Today was a good day.

Dealt with changing my ticket at south african airways. Seems like that happens on every trip I ever take. I change the date of return/onward travel. usually to postpone it. Moved it to sept. 7 to go to Joburg and hopefully do a couple gigs over the weekend there. I've been in touch with some of the very fine folks at African Dope Records and it looks like somehow somewhere so sound system action will happen there. Then back to Rio.

Lunch at this new place that Hilde told me about on a corner with umbrellas and coconut palms surrounded by a low wall. I got down with some wali na maharagwe na kuku. Yes!

Back to my upstairs dungeon to get ready for the recording session in the late afternoon with Motana. I've been finishing up a whole slew of tunes from the last year or so that I hadn't had time to deal with yet. I managed to do the final listen and bounce of Saye Mbott that I did with ALIF in Dakar last year. Burnt it to a disk and deleted it to make more room for new stuff to be recorded today. on the the next thing. I'm doing a remix for Dr. Das and Pitcho. I do that in my solo time at the upstairs dungeon. I like those kind of moments where I'm just in my own space that travels around the world with me. A simple desk and chair. My computer, camera, ipod, phone, notebook, a pen. My portable office/studio work space.

Then I got distracted and made 2 new beats quick like in Reason. Realized that it was 5 to 4 and I had to be at the academy to meet Matona. I stuffed things into my backpack, grabbed my mic stand and went of the the school. He was still finishing giving a class (I caught him having a smoke break in the middle of the class) and asked to meet in a half hour. I set up my laptop on a step of the room often used as a recital room, grabbed a wooden stool and got to work fixing up the 2 beats to be able to do with matona. It was a little hard because there was this rasta guy camped out on the step next to me playing one of those big casio keyboards with the speakers on either side playing as loud as the guy on my other side who just arrived playing the upright piano just because he happened to stop by today to play some piano. i battled to hear what I was doing while those guys hammered away. Eventually, matona appeared ready to record.

We shut ourselves in a classroom adjacent to the pianos. Inside, I could hear somebody playing violin. I looked out the window and there was a guy doing just that. And, the pianos. Matona asked them to go away or to other rooms. We tried again. But, the violins started again. i went out that time and began to ask them to go inside and shut the doors, but Adel, the bass player saw and chased them away. he hooked us up with quiet for a good hour.

matona wanted to work on this ragga track that I named, "mnazi" for lack of anything else more meaningful. It's coconut. He recorded a couple passes. In my mind it was all useable, but he just kept getting better. Then we moved on to the 2 tracks that i'd done the beats for earlier. I didn't really like the first one. I kind of thought, "what was I thinking when I made that." But, matona flowed on top of it and almost made it seem right just with his nice playing. The second tracks nailed it though. That one worked out well. He seemed pleased. Adel came in and had a listening saying he thought it was good. I'm stoked.

Oh yeah, i forgot...earlier on the street, I ran into Farid, who I had met earlier in my stay here in Stone Town. He is somehow related to the coach of the Women Fighter's Football team and I see him everwhere. He asked what I was doing here now that the filming was over, what was I doing. I told him I was looking for musicians and rappers. He said, Oh! Then come with me. I followed him round several side streets and into a courtyard where he started banging on the door and yelling. Eventually some people came out. They were BTB - Brown Town Boys. We chatted. One of the guy hugged me when he heard that I'm a producer. I liked them and wanted to hear their CD, but the only copy was at a friend's house and they couldn't get it, so we set up a meeting for later in the evening.

Fast forward. i did me usual internet down/upload at the post office internet cafe. Cut over and somehow found their place again (it was really dark). I listened to their 2 recorded songs. There was something there. The production was pretty rudimentary, but there was a certain charm. What the vocals lacked in precision was made up for in heartfeltness. Then they wanted to hear some of my beats. They loved Omzo and ALIF from Senegal. Also marechal from Rio. They really liked 2 riddims that I'd never recorded anybody on from senegal. They fresstyled and freestyled and freestyled while I just hit repeat on the ipod that we'd jacked into their boombox setup. mbhangi went around. they were really digging the tracks. So, I offered to produce their choice between the two.