|
|
"E Wan D.J. Nar Yar":
A New York D.J. Returns to Mix in Post War Sierra Leone
Submitted by Jake Bright
“E wan D.J. nar yar,” he wants to D.J. here, my friend Jordan says pointing to me. We’ve just climbed unannounced into the sound booth of Aces Nightclub, one of hottest spots in Freetown, the West African capital of Sierra Leone. The house D.J. looks at me and then looks back at Jordan
a little puzzled.
I am in Sierra Leone working on a writing project and decided last minute to bring my mixer and D.J. software equipped MacBook with hopes of fulfilling a wild idea to play in Africa. An ex British
Colony, Sierra Leone was founded by freed slaves in the late 18th century. It holds historical ties to the US through the Amistad affair (see Steven Spielberg’s 1997 movie titled on subject), the Gullah people of South Carolina and the country’s Creoles, descendents of freed slaves (many of whom had fled the US after fighting on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War) who became a unique ethnic group with a distinct English and African based language, Krio. Sierra Leone is also known for its brutal 10 year civil war, including heavy employment of child soldiers, chronicled in the 2006 Academy Award-Nominated film Blood Diamond.
Back at Aces Nightclub, Jordan and I begin a dialogue with house D.J., Bai Kargbo. Jordan explains that I am a New York D.J. who also knows African music, has played prominent gigs, and that I’d like to have a slot mixing there. After some discussion of music and convincing, Bai tells us to come back on Thursday night and he’ll confirm if he can give me a set. This is my best chance at mixing a club in
Africa . One doesn’t really find agents or bookers when it comes to D.J. culture here. It would have been nearly impossible to email or call ahead to confirm a set or sign a contract. Like an African market, one needs to show up and arrange the deal in person, preferably with the guidance of a savvy local.
On our return before Bai’s main set on Thursday evening, he confirms he’s going to give me a slot Saturday. As the club fills, Bai begins his mix and starts announcing about every 20 minutes in Krio that Aces will have a VIP guest D.J. from New York Saturday night: “Dis Satiday, we go get wan special New York D.J. wae name Jake Bright – 12am til 2am!” Only then do I realize he’s given me the peak slot on
Freetown ’s prime going out night. When I get a chance to feel out the club and hear Bai mix, I also realize the place is highly dance driven and as a D.J., Bai is really good: excellent.
In New York there is a lot of debate in the music community as to what it actually means to be a good D.J. In many ways DJing has become a fad du jour, some leading with real skills and others with gimmicks. For my part, DJing started as a bit of an accident, someone asking me to bring some music for a house party, and quickly became one of those hobbies/professions to fill a void for music. In addition to mixing clubs, the junior patron, and fashion circuit, after booking several big African charity galas, I got a name for playing African sets and eventually formed an African focused event group, Cocody Productions.
Listening to Bai, I remember the definition of ‘good D.J.’ I’ve developed through my own experience and the tutelage of several experienced mentors: someone who has tremendous professionalism working with venues and equipment, excellent range and depth of music genres, and the ability to read a crowd and play smooth mixes to meet moment and occasion. With this in mind, I note Bai is superb. Much better than most of the D.J.s I’ve heard in
New York . He’s tight, reads the crowd very well, and mixes everything smoothly from 80s pop, modern pop, all genres of African music, hip hop, house, dancehall, and reggae. Name any relevant party music from Africa or the US and somewhere in Bai’s dozen or so wallets of labeled CDs sprawled out all over his D.J. station, it’s probably in there and he able to weave it in. I find out he’s been mixing for about nine years and never outside Salone, as locals refer to their country. Bai also reminds me of something I learned the hard way when I first started mixing for African crowds in New York: Africans don’t only want to hear African music. They expect a great mix of a lot of genres, including African sub-genres.
So as I observe the dance driven West African crowd of Aces moving to one of the better D.J.s I’ve come across, Jordan and I continue to hear my name repeated again and again as the Saturday night, celebrity D.J. from New York. Thoughts of, “What the hell have I gotten myself into?” do start spinning in my head. On my doubting side, I am a thirty something white dude with a desk job, originally from Northern Michigan, and now I am headlining the peak set of a big African nightclub on a Saturday night.
As the evening approaches, I try to reassure myself by remembering some of the big African gigs I’d pulled off back in New York, especially the late night Friday shifts I’d done at Harlem’s center for African music, Shrine Bar, where the locals gave me the nickname “D.J. White Boy.”
When it comes to my mixing African music, getting a gig in Sierra Leone brings me around full circle. I had traveled through the country during the early stages of the war, in my late teens, on assignment with The Red Cross. Aside from seeing a number of unfortunate things related to the conflict, my time in Sierra Leone was largely positive and influential.
This and the tremendous charm and hospitality shown by the Sierra Leonean people, even in their own time of trial, has pulled me back several times as a freelance writer documenting the country’s post war progress. Thankfully, the war ended in 2001 and modern Sierra Leone is overwhelmingly peaceful. The country has a new democratically elected president, Ernest Bai Koromo, and Freetown is popping with tremendous energy and commercial activity. Most of the buildings that were destroyed or damaged during the war have been repaired or rebuilt and the ex combatants, including former child soldiers, have been disarmed and many rehabilitated. This is quite different from my first experience there with armed checkpoints, curfews, soldiers with AK-47s and RPGs abound, and Nigerian Alpha Jets flying bombing runs overhead.
As someone who has always loved music, my first real exposure to African beats in Sierra Leone planted in me a permanent allure for sounds of the continent. To say that music is central in Sierra Leonean culture would be one of those patent understatements. In Freetown, music is the heartbeat of the capital and people. Anywhere you are -- the downtown quarter, the markets by the ocean, walking past the old wooden Creole houses, the shanty dwellings and slums along the city’s low areas; from the big houses in the hills, in the taxi cabs and poda poda vans packed to the brim; from churches, the national stadium, the local primary schools; from every restaurant, café, gas station and kerosene lit roadside stand -- there is always African and reggae driven music playing in Sierra Leone. It’s the backdrop to everything that happens; a pleasant soundtrack for all people living there, and an escapist one for those living in challenging circumstances.
While I try to avoid stressing it, one can’t get away from noting that Sierra Leone is poor, one of the poorest countries in the world by socioeconomic standards. After living through 10 years of war, most Sierra Leoneans still live far below the poverty level. There are few real jobs and only recently did any part of the country have electricity. Only a small number have the opportunity to go to any form of school and for most, life is a day to day struggle of making the most basic ends meet, on the streets peddling whatever they can. Music helps keep people’s spirits up, appeals to a subtle romantic side of Sierra Leonean culture (there are always one or two hit loves ballads du jour playing non-stop throughout the country), and also serves as an outlet for discontent with a government that often appears more intent on serving itself more than its people. A new generation of local musicians in Sierra Leone has become outspoken critics of corrupt politicians, most notably artist Emmerson Bockarie, whose album and songs helped sway the last national election.
During my first trip to Sierra Leone during the war, this constant stream of vibrant music, juxtaposed to all that is West Africa, struck me like a beam. I recall a visit to the market near
Freetown ’s Wilberforce Street, with dozens of young music vendors, their tapes and CDs strung along the walls and streets, songs pumped out on radios connected to car batteries. There I purchased a variety of music, all which became an introduction and foundation to music of Africa and its Diaspora. This was the first time I’d heard Soukous and artists like Kanda Bongo Man, Koffi Olimide, and Papa Wemba. I took home my first Caribbean dancehall CDs (Shabba Ranks, Tanto Metro) and also heard African reggae legends like Alpha Blondy and Lucky Dube.
When I show up Saturday night at Aces with Jordan, my MacBook, Lstand, and mixer in tote, these artists are in the back of my head. Taxis and okadas (local term for motorbikes) begin to pull up with people streaming into the club. Like many places, including New York, when the weekend comes people in
Freetown are ready to go out and party. The club scene is much different here, however. There are some inevitable tragic scenarios that play out related to poverty and prostitution, one can’t deny it. Still, if one is at a club frequented primarily by locals, those things are largely on the margins. In many ways going out in Freetown, as compared to New York, is much more innocent and enjoyable. It’s more of a community affair and there’s a lot less wrangling and flexing over job title, who you know, money, or status. All of that would get in the way of the dancing and fun.
Most of the clubs in Freetown are located on or near a strip of beach on the Atlantic Ocean called Lumley. Aces is here with three bars, a lounge and large dance floor, the entire space partly covered and part open air with a humid ocean breeze.
Reviewing the crowd, there’s quite a generational mix. There are teens, 20 and 30 somethings, and some people in their 40s and 50s, all in varied dress. There are younger patrons doing their best to look like the American rappers they’ve seen from bootlegged DVDs, and ladies in traditional West African dresses and head wraps. There’s an “African Idol” type custom for many venues to showcase amateur talent at some point during the night, such as dancers and drummers, comedians, or aspiring hip hop artists. And the biggest difference between going out in New York and
Freetown is people’s completely festive attitude and lack of any hesitation to dance and move anywhere they are in the club whenever they feel it.
With my Yankees hat donned, Bai gives me space for my mixer and laptop, which I am a little worried about due to the heat and humidity. After years of debate (vinyl vs. CDs/CDs or vinyl vs. digital music and laptops), laptops and sophisticated D.J. software is the norm in New York. Laptops with good software have come a long way, but heat is the enemy. If your laptop overheats, might as well be like pouring candle wax on a turntable back in the day. This particular night it’s hot, real hot, and the humidity feels like 100 percent. Sweat on my hands and forehead, I keep fingers crossed for my Mac. Bai is using CD players and a mixer and running as many fans as he can in the booth to keep all the equipment from overheating.
After Bai’s guys get me plugged in, I begin my set playing it safe; only things I am sure the crowd would recognize, especially from someone coming from New York. I roll through some modern American hip hop and hip pop: Keri Hilson, Rihanna, T Pain, and Jay-Z. The largest response for this comes from the youngest people in the crowd, many of whom seem to know all the lyrics, and give me waves of approval. This is only a small portion of the club, however. Wall to wall, bar to bar, the place is packed and I can see people are looking for something more.
At a point like this a D.J. really needs to figure out what to pull out of the music treasure chest. Something to get the right spark for a core mass to commit. You take a ten second read of the crowd, think through your music library, make a decision, and hope you’ve found the nugget. It comes to me: “dancehall!” When mixing for Africans and the Diaspora, I’ve always found
Caribbean based dancehall to be the intermediary genre that gets everyone moving, regardless of background or nationality. So I drop an old classic, one that I’d heard for the first time years earlier right there in Freetown, “Murder She Wrote,” by Chaka Demus and Pliers. Boom! Swiftly the entire club starts to commit and the floor fills. After a stroll through old and new dancehall classics, I mix a safe grouping of recognizable hip hop, R&B, and soul classics: Biggie Smalls, Tupac, Mary J. Blige, Beyonce, The Jackson 5, among them. I then set myself up to take a chance on my best bet on African music, a large portion of it Nigerian.
A lot has happened in the African music industry within the last two years. Popular African music, its production and organization, is nothing like the US and can be incredibly difficult to track as an outsider. If you look for pan-African charts, such as Billboard, or an organized hit making structure like the US, it's never really existed. There are some African musicians, like Youssou N’Dour, who have broken through on the "World Music" scene, but most of the industry is small and localized to each country. In the past and to some extent today, in order to know what people are really listening to, you have to show up in major capitals, go to the clubs, learn of artists through word of mouth, and listen to what is being played over and over in taxis, busses, restaurants and homes.
MTV Africa, and the Nigerian music industry in particular, has started to change that. The first ever MTV Africa Music Awards took place in 2008, with concerts featuring nominees in Nairobi, Johannesburg, Lagos, and Kinshasa. Nigerians dominated the awards, filling many of the nomination slots and taking six of ten top prizes. This has led to incredible pan African exposure for a new generation of Nigerian artists churning out hit after hit on a fast production cycle. These include 2Face, 9Ice, P-Square, Styl-Plus, Faze, D’banj, and Olu Maintain. Even visiting East Africa, one starts to hear Nigerian hits being played alongside modern artists like Wahu (Kenya) and TKZee ( South Africa). In the past the only music that’s come close to having this continent wide appeal has been Congolese music or some artists based in Abidjan, but even then, these groupings have more generally produced hits over very long time spans, not year by year.
I drop into P-Square’s romantic classic, “No One Like You,” continuing to D’banj’s, “Fall in Love.” The dance floor is now packed. I notice a few pleasantly surprised looks as Bai announces several times it’s still me mixing, the non-African from New York. I continue the set with Olu Maintain’s “Yahoozee,” Bigiano’s “Shayo,” J. Martin’s “Good or Bad(Owey)” and by now the entire club is moving. It’s close to 2am. I am finally relieved that I appear to have pulled this off and looking to quit while ahead and hand things back over to the house master, D.J. Bai. He gives me one more song and I conclude with an old Kanda Bongo Man Soukous favorite, a song I picked up while trekking around the same country, then at war, so many years ago. One of the night’s live acts for the talent section shows up in the D.J. booth. A member asks me, “How is it you know all that African music?” My response, “It’s Obama’s America, you just never know.”
My set is complete. I made it. D.J. Bai gives me a nod of recognition, “Great job,” and I fade back down into the club with Jordan. For several more hours, Bai keeps the place rocking. Wherever they are, on the dance floor, at the bar, on the terrace, people dance. As a special guest, I am pulled center dance floor African style several times by the crowd and by the end of the night, I’ve danced so much and had such a great time, I am drenched in sweat and exhausted. There are local expressions for Sierra Leoneans permanently residing in country and those living abroad visiting home: HBs (Home Basers) for those who reside and JCs (Just Comes) for those visiting. Before the end of the night, one JC who’s been living in the US tells me, “Be careful. I have this problem when I come back. It’s much more fun to go out here. When you get home, you may never want to go out in
New York again.”
First published: Contributed by Jake Bright
|
