Michael Baird is the creator of Sharp Wood Records, the Dutch record label best known for releasing the 21-volume CD collection drawn from the Hugh Tracey archives in Grahamstown, South Africa. Tracey gathered all his extraordinary recordings in a library (International Library of African Music, or ILAM) there, but until Baird came along, the music was all but inaccessible to the general public. It turns out that Baird’s passion for this project had everything to do with his own childhood spent in Zambia. Baird has been returning to Zambia since 1996, to learn and play music, but also to make fascinating field recordings, also released on his Sharp Wood label. The label has also released two excellent compilations of classic, guitar band hits from Zambia, Zambush, Volumes 1 and 2. Banning Eyre spoke with Baird during the 2005 WOMEX conference in Newcastle, England. Here’s their conversation.
B.E: Why don't you start by introducing yourself?
M.B.: My name is Michael Baird. I'm a drummer and composer. I live in Holland. But I have British nationality, and I was born in Zambia, which in those days was known as Northern Rhodesia. It was a British colony.
B.E: You were born when?
M.B.: 1954. And I stayed until ‘64. So I left when I was 10 years old. So my childhood universe was full of African music. It was only later, when I was 13, that I started drumming. But I heard African music literally in my mother's womb. So it was all around, and it was a natural thing, whether it's kalimba playing, or xylophones from Western Province, and all the drumming and the singing and the clapping. It was just a natural phenomenon for me growing up there.
B.E: When you left, did you return to Holland?
M.B.: No, there were three in-between years back in the old motherland, England. But it wasn't my motherland. It was my parents’ homeland, so I came to Europe, and the European climates, and I had to wear European trousers for the first time, and a coat. And according to my mother, my classic comment when dressed up with winter shoes and everything was "I can't move." Then my father got a job in Holland, and the family moved to Holland when I was 13.
B.E: How did you end up going back to Zambia?
M.B.: Well, you would have to say it's going back to one's roots, and away. Before we came to England, I had never seen television. But we had this long-running program Top of the Pops on BBC television. So you had the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Kinks, and I loved it all, but in 1966, it must have been November, the Jimi Hendrix Experience played "Hey Joe" live on BBC television, and the world was never the same again. Certainly, England wasn't. I don't know if it was the wild man energy, but I just really dug it, because I think it basically reminded me of African music. That was how music was meant to sound.
From there, I don't know. I just wanted to become a drummer. So I liberated some sticks from the youth club and played along to records on the bed, or on cushions. A few years later, in Holland, Cream with Ginger Baker, and Mitch Mitchell with Jimi Hendrix were my first drum heroes. They made a lot of noise. That's for sure. I wanted to become a drummer. I was 14. That was my goal, and I achieved it. I am a professional drummer, for what it's worth. And later on, because these guys had been jazz players before they became pop drummers or rock drummers, I figured, "Well, I'd better get into jazz, even if it's just for my technique." And then I heard Kenny Clarke, and I was sold on jazz music.
One thing leads to another in this life, and when I was about 30 years old, I started composing. But hey, better late than never. Why do you write your own music? Because you don't hear around you what you hear in your head. If someone else out there has made that music, or far better music, then we play your compositions. But I always had this idea of mixing African elements and African feel with western music. After all, the Stones were copying music from the States. As were the Kinks, and whatever. I wanted to mix it up. I wasn't content was just playing African music, because although I was born there and my umbilical cord is buried under a big tree in Lusaka—which is important, folks—I am also a European. I am both. That is sort of my musical makeup. I love traditional xylophones and kalimba playing in Zambia as much as I love the Fourth String Quartet by Bartok. So what is a guy going to do with that kind of baggage? Well, in my case, I feel I have to do something with it.
B.E: In the seventies and eighties, when you were not living in Zambia, did you keep up with what was happening in music in Zambia?
M.B.: No. I knew that kalindula was happening in the eighties, and I had heard some of it. At that time in my development as a musician, I was really into jazz, and in the seventies, I am happy to say that the free jazz thing was still happening in Europe. We had to Frank Wright Quartet based in Paris, What a unit! And Cecil Taylor with Andrew Cyrille. I dug Kenny Clarke, and Philly Joe, and Elvin, so my mind then wasn't back home in Africa so to speak. It was later on that I sort of rediscovered those musical roots.
B.E: So how did you get back to those roots?
M.B.: Well, specifically my Zambian roots, I hadn't kept up with the developments of Zambian popular music, but I was always interested in all African music, so as a musician, like any decent drummer, you're building up a collection of African music. So whether it was from Mali or Mozambique or Uganda, or some pieces from the Zambia, or lots from the Congo and Cameroon. Ocora and Arion. Even Nonesuch. Folkways, I believe, had a collection called Afro and Afro-American Drums. They had the Rwandan drummers. When I was a child, we traveled a lot, whether it was in the Belgian Congo at the time, or Kenya, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique. I had been to all those places. I had heard Rwandan drumming in the Belgian Congo. When you were living on the Copperbelt in Zambia, you went to Lubumbashi, in those days Elizabethville, for a long weekend, and there, lo and behold, were the Tutsi drummers. I was five, man. And in Harare, at the book fair, still going strong despite Mugabe, there was a Chopi xylophone ensemble playing in front of the goddamn building, and that sound left its mark. I was eight years old. So I heard all this music.
I kept in touch in that way, but there never was Zambian music, traditional Zambian music, out on the market. The French labels, Ocora and Arion, you could hear year-old stuff from their colonial past, but the British never really did much, except that, believe it or not, many of my most favorite pieces of music, recordings of traditional African music, were made by some guy called Hugh Tracey. And you could hear that this was really authentic. That was old stuff, old music, sometimes things come full circle. Then in 1994 I went to see a Chopi timbila (xylophone) ensemble led by Venanzio Mbande when they hit the town I live in, Utrecht, in Holland. And this strange guy called Andrew Tracey gave a sort of a lecture explaining the principles of the music beforehand. The concert was great, and everyone was sweating, including the audience, and afterwards, I went up to Andrew, and I said, "Hi, this is really interesting, and the concert blew me away, but have you heard of Hugh Tracey?" And his answer was astounding for me, because he said, "Oh, he was my father, and Dad’s collection of recordings is at ILAM (International Library of African Music), in Grahamstown, South Africa."
Now I had always had some romantic notion that Hugh Tracey’s work had either been burnt in a fire, or thrown into the Zambezi, or some “white man's grave” story. But no. And by now, I know that about 80% of his recordings are there. They still exist. So that was in ‘94. In ‘96, I walked into the place, ILAM, in South Africa, to do some research. I had a music scholarship from the Dutch Ministry of Culture, Performing Arts Council, to redevelop my musical roots, being an innovative sort of jazz and improvising composer by this time. So I walked into this place, and there was nothing available on CD. So the first albums in my Hugh Tracey series were released at the end of 98. And we're now in 2005, and there are soon to be 21. On that same trip in 96, I did field recordings in Zambia and Zimbabwe, which have been released on my own label on the Batonga Across the Waters album.
B.E: What about the other CD of field recordings you made yourself, Zambia Roadside?
M.B.: Well, some of it was recorded on that same trip in 96, but most of it on the second trip, recording trip, in 2002.
B.E: Let's go back and talk a little bit about traditional Zambian music. What do we need to know about that in general?
M.B.: First of all, Zambia, like so many countries in Africa, is scourged by colonial boundaries. During the scramble for Africa, the European powers just drew boundaries and carved up Africa amongst themselves, but drew the boundaries right across tribal lands and ethnic groups as though they never existed. So Zambia has some very straight lines, and some little bits, which were given and taken between the British and the Belgians and the Portuguese and whatever. So it’s artificial. Africa should re-carve itself up, but that would cause too much political shit. Can I say that on the air? Anyway, within the boundaries of Zambia as we know it today, with its colonial mixup, there are about 75 different peoples, each with their own language. There are musical zones, such as the Chokwe, Luba, Bemba zone, which is all in pure fourths, and then underneath there, they don't sing and harmonize in fourths. It's all in thirds. So you can make these distinctions, if you want to be an ethnomusicologist about it.
But within Zambia, there are so many different types of music, due to the fact that there are so many different people of different ethnic backgrounds, and therefore different cultural backgrounds, and all the migrations that happened within Africa. Same as in Greater China, or Europe. These things even happen in the United States of America these days. You know, no one was more primitive than the other. Every continent had its good or bad eras. But in Zambia, like in west Zambia, the Lozi people play the xylophone, as the Lunda do, and the Luba. But towards the east, they don't at all. In southern Zambia, they have a musical bow, kalumbu, which was exported, as it were, to Brazil and is known as berimbau, but it comes from Zambia and Angola. That's because the Chokwe sold slaves to the Portuguese in exchange for guns, so the Chokwe raided southern Zambia, and eastern Zambia, and so that instrument ended up also in Brazil. Then in eastern Zambia, you had the bangwe board zither, also in Malawi, but they are the same people, the Chewa people. They just happened to be carved up into different colonial states. Tough, but there you go. And a lot of these instruments, the whole kalimba family—kankowele, kangombia, all the different names and models and types that were in Zambia—a lot of the traditional musics have disappeared.
Historically, and this is true for many so-called developing countries all over, they are losing their identity and their diversity. But specifically in Africa, first, the Christian missionaries arrived and they forbade “the Devil’s music." Then, during colonial days, there was this incredible arrogance, into which I was born. “Oh, no, no, no. African music is primitive, my dear. It's a load of noise.” And some of my fellow whites, and my father's colleagues would admit, "But the drumming is good. They have a good rhythm. But it's primitive." I mean, that was the mentality. Then in postcolonial days, the new governments had this crazy idea that everything Western was superior anyway. In 1996, just as an example, when I went back to Zambia for the first time—it took me 32 years to go back home in that way—I was having a cocktail with the Minister of Culture in Zambia. And I told him why I was there. I was studying Zambian music, and making recordings. And he looked at me as though I was a primitive guy, and he said, "Well, I listen to Beethoven at home." And that's the Minister of Culture in 1996 of Zambia.
So in the colonial state, musicians never got much support from their own governments and their own people. And then, after that, the initial postcolonial era—and we now have Mac Madness and Democrazy, which comes from America. Global imperialism. It's all one Big Mac, and the diversity is going. So then a young black kid in Africa, whether he's in Nairobi or Lusaka or Johannesburg or Dakar, once they have seen a gangster rap movie with gold and chains and the cars and the chicks and the pools, that's what they want. They have been seduced. And very specifically, once again in Zambia, all the kids for years now, they have not been playing the kalimba family, or the bangwe, or even the xylophone music, which is sort of traditional court music. Okay, that still exists, but it hasn't been passed on to the young people because they say, "That's old fuddy-duddy music and we want to play guitars." In the rural areas, they make their own guitars and it sounds great, as in Zambia Roadside. So music does develop. I am not a purist, but it has gone so fast. That is not normal. That is tragic. I don't know what you Americans say, but in England we say that is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
B.E: We say that too. That's interesting. Let's go back to this period of the seventies, when the guitar music really comes of age. It seems like that music never developed a political vibe as it did in Zimbabwe. Maybe that's because the struggle went on so much longer there. Was there anything political in the guitar music when it started?
M.B.: Not when it started. Although, once again, it was Hugh Tracey who made the first recordings of Zambia guitar music, as released on Origins of Guitar Music (SWP 015). On the Copperbelt, guys were earning money. They had money in their pockets, and they wanted a guitar, which was a symbol of affluence, of modernism. And for those early guitar pieces, I went to a lot of trouble to get correct translations. Some of them have hidden meanings, and some of them praise the white man for bringing law and order into the country, and others are sort of very satirical about the ways of the Europeans. So the undercurrent was already there even during colonial days, because music always traditionally was… I mean, you could never chastise a chief, but you could in a song, just like in a European court you had a court jester. He could make fun of the king, whereas no one else was allowed to, all in camouflaged terms, but the meaning was clear.
In 1964, Zambia became independent, and people had to make a whole transition from colonialism towards their own identity. Even just musically speaking, you can hear it taking place with the Big Gold Six. They are using traditional songs, and putting it with electric guitar and electric bass, but still singing like a very suave kind of nightclub act, but typically Zambian. Then in the seventies…. When did Ian Smith declare his unilateral thing?
B.E: The UDI [Unilateral Declaration of Independence for Rhodesia] was in 1965.
M.B.: So, the longer it took, and the bloodier the war, the more important Zambia became. Let's not forget, Kaunda may have turned dictator later on, but he really was a humanist in the beginning, and he helped the struggle. He gave Joshua Nkomo a place to stay, and Mbeki, and all these people. They were living in Lusaka, and they were bombed by the Rhodesian Air Force and you name it. They suffered. And also economically, which is why the Chinese ended up building the Zam-Tan railroad from the Copperbelt to Dar es Salaam, because Ian Smith wouldn't let the copper go through. He had a stranglehold on Zambia. So the music then became more fanatic and more political. “Zimbabwe Must Be Free” is a famous album by Emanuel Mulemena.
But on the other hand, Zambians are really laid-back people. All of them. There is one tribe in the middle who like fisticuffs, but all the others are really relaxed. That's why they never had a civil war. They don't want to fight. They are among the friendliest people you'll meet anywhere on this earth. So they have easy, laid-back songs. And the Bemba way of harmonizing. Little kids, still today, sing three-part harmony. It's fantastic. It's great. The sound is all there. You know, it's this way of sliding into notes. Many a Western ear would say it's not spot-on, but they don't understand what's happening. So it's soft, it's friendly. It takes quite a lot to get a Zambian mad. It does.
B.E: What is kalindula?
M.B.: Kalindula is a rhythm from Luapula Province, which is one of the northern provinces and Zambia, and the Aushi people live there, and that's their rhythm. Kalindula. And the other one is nfunkutu, which is a great word. Kalindula is a fast 6/8 [DEMONSTRATES], and the beat is [DEMONSTRATES]. That's kalindula. It's happy, sort of party music. And there's the kalindula dance, the whole package, as it were. In 1982, I wasn't there, but this is according to my well-informed sources who were in Zambia at the time, John Mwanza I think his name was, he recorded with electric guitars and a drumset, Western pop instruments. He recorded a kalindula song. That had never been done before, someone taking a rural, traditional theme, their rhythm and sort of a song, and he went electric with it. Before that, a lot of it was rumba like, which you can hear on Zambush, Vol. 2, Hits from the 60s and 70s. So he started this kalindula craze, and it's as though all of Zambia, including Zambians living in the cities, Lusaka and the Copperbelt, they finally created a new roots music. As I said, the transition from 1964 towards their own musical identity—64, 74, okay, there were things happening, but this was 1982.
Then it took off. And then you have Lozi songs and Luvale songs from Western Province, which had nothing to do with kalindula. But they used to their own traditional rhythms and dances and beats, and went electric with it. So the kalindula years, which were roughly from 1982 up to 92, or 91, were not all kalindula rhythm from Luapula Province specifically, but were rural songs and rural rhythms from all over, which went electric, and they became the big hits of that era. So that's a real phenomenon.
To the north, Zairean rumba was pumping out and blaring out of loud speakers, and just about all the songs had the same beat. To the south, Thomas Mapfumo in a now free Zimbabwe had his chimurenga music, and when he said it was based on mbira music, Western journalists said, "Oh, that's interesting." And later, he reintroduced an mbira into his group, whereas before, he had his electric guitarists playing mbira patterns. He also had the good luck that I think he became a symbol of freedom. The music was freedom music. But because Zambia was so laid-back, I don't think they cared about much as long as the copper price was up. Zambia had a problem when the Vietnam War ended, because all the goddamn casings of shells and bullets were all made of copper. So as long as the Vietnam War was going on, the world copper price was way up, and Zambians were on the crest of a wave. They were riding high. It was after that that the economy slumped, and it has never recovered.
Why did this wonderful, fresh, identity music, kalindula, never hit the big-time? I don't really know. I can't explain that. I can only say that if you look to the neighbors, Zaire had large expatriate communities in Brussels and Paris, and when Franco and those guys, and Papa Wemba played there, they were playing for their own people, and the Europeans came and listened as well. And I think it's fair to say that Thomas Mapfumo single-handedly created a focus on Zimbabwe and pop music. There were others. The Four Brothers. Oliver Mtukudzi. The Bhundu Boys. But that was later.
B.E: Oliver had hits as early as the seventies. And Zexie Manatsa. There definitely were others.
M.B.: Yes, there were those guys. But Thomas made famous in the world. He launched it.
B.E: The roots sound. That's right. It is interesting to know that something like this was also happening in Zambia. Were these urban groups?
M.B.: They were rural groups that went electric and went to the cities. The city groups played Zamrock. They were copying Western rock music for the simple reason that President Kaunda had decreed that 90%--or was it 70%?—of all music played on Zambian radio had to be Zambian born and bred, or produced. So city Zambians couldn't hear whoever it was, Led Zeppelin and all these people at the time, so they did their own version. But that was Zambian made, so it was allowed to be played on radio. But kalindula was rural guys. In the case of the Serenje Kalindula Band, they were given electric guitars and a drum set and told to rehearse for a week, and then cut their first record. I mean, what a story? Because they were like a local skiffle group playing on their homemade double bass. Great sound. And homemade drum set with like a ring with bottle tops as a high hats, and even a bicycle wheel—all that kind of ingenuity that you can find all over Africa.
B.E: Which was more popular during that ten-year period, the roots sounds or the Zamrock?
M.B.: The roots sounds. But when I arrived back in Zambia in 1996, I wanted to find and listen to and study and learn to play and record kalindula music. I was laughed at. “Oooooh, Michael! Kalindula is finished. What do you want to listen to that for? It is all rumba now." And it was true. Kalindula was finished. Now, I have been told how that came about. First, the piracy killed the business. Zambia had the Teal record plant in Ndola. So they had that bit of infrastructure. A lot of Zairians and Tanzanians all had their vinyl records pressed in Ndola. And Zambians as well, but that was all homegrown market. Then there were cassette pirates, and apparently, according to the Zambians, they were all Tanzanians. They flooded the market places with illegal cassettes. That was one reason. And Teal, which was part of Lonrho Ltd, London Rhodesia Company [a mining conglomerate that branched into record production], you could say a remnant of colonial days, Lonrho pulled out of southern Africa, and I also think it had to do with Zimbabwe and political things. But also, the good days were over, man. There wasn't a big profit to be made. The Africans weren't stupid anymore. They were living in their own countries and making their own laws, and nationalizing the mines and things like this, which is good. So they pulled out and the Teal Record Co. closed down. Nobody could press records anymore, and I think that's what caused this flood of illegal cassettes. And then Zairean rumba took over, and like five years later, when I arrived in 96, kalindula was finished, and I was laughed at. "What do you want to hear that old stuff for?"
B.E: But now it seems like there's a bit of a revivalist interest. This label Mondo Music is releasing a lot of very up-to-date music, but also some retrospective CDs.
M.B.: Yep.
B.E: Tell me about some of these artists.
M.B.: Well, one group that keeps popping up is Amayenge. The simple reason for the ubiquitous Amayenge is that they spanned a whole 25 year period, due to their indomitable leader Kris Chali. He kept on going, and they even became like a flagship for Kenneth Kaunda’s UNIP party, and the government paid for their PA, and they had the best PA in the country, and played in Russia and wherever, and were exported. They were one group who kept on going, and of course it was during the eighties, or the latter half of the eighties, that AIDS started hitting Africa, and also Zambia. As I put in the booklet notes somewhere, it's the traditional, masculine, traveling professionals who get hit first: truck drivers, soldiers, and musicians. So that undoubtedly had something to do with it. The best musicians just dropped off like flies, and they were gone, and the whole Zambian music scene collapsed, until Mondo Music came along. There were so many good bands, not only kalindula bands. Amayenge were not a kalindula band, they were a pan-Zambian band. They played kalindula with ease. They did Lozi things. They did Tonga things from the South has Zambia. They did all those things.
B.E: Tell me about some of the artists on your two Zambush compilations.
M.B.: Well, I already mentioned the Serenje Kalindula Band, who were from the town of Serenje. They were Lala people, one of the Bemba tribes. They were a rural skiffle group playing their homemade instruments, and they were the people who were sort of whisked off by some entrepreneur to Ndola, given electric instruments and a real drumset, and told to rehearse for a week, and then they cut their record, and then a lot of people just went to town with their savings, or what ever, even slept rough, arrived at the television studio barefoot because they didn't have no shoes, but they had their electric guitars, and they were making good music, with definitely their own tuning. So what? That came from the tradition, because they were rural musicians.
Afterwards came the collapse of the kalindula years, which was approximately 1991. In ‘96, there was still nothing happening when I arrived there. But by the year 2000, Mondo Music jumped in and sort of breathed new life into the Zambian scene, which is a very good thing, except that they had the idea that they wanted to produce city music again. For the generation of Zambians who grew up with hip-hop, with ragamuffin, and had been listening to a lot of music from the States and Jamaica, and they didn't look back to their own musical roots that much. So, who is interested in Zam reggae in the West? Who is interested in Zam rap? Well, not that many people.
B.E: But it is popular there, right?
M.B.: Yes and no. And I can only talk from my own experience. Many times, whether it is a taxicab driver in Lusaka, or people in the street, or people I just happened to be on a bus with, and you strike up a conversation because I'm friendly and so are they. “Yeah, what you think of this new stuff?" “Ah, it's all right.” “Okay, so what's wrong with that?" “Well, you see, in our tradition, songs have to be about something. Not about a girl. I love you. Or, you have a great ass. Our songs all had a social message."
So the new music was criticized by people going towards their thirties, and in their thirties, but I suppose the younger people, who are a minority, who have some money to spend and who can buy CDs, and have a Discman or whatever—that’s not the majority of Zambians, right?—they’re like, “Yeah, we are the new Zambians. We’re cool, man." That's what they want, and it gives them a sense of pride, but I am thankful that only last year Mondo Music, as far as I'm concerned the only player or the major player in Zambian music CDs, finally released an album by one Brian Chilala. Now that's good. That's energy. That's cool. That's electric Zambian music, which can only come from Zambia. Brain Chilala is not trying to copy Americans, not trying to copy someone else, and it is so refreshing. I said, "Yes! Finally." And to their credit, Mondo Music also released that album. So I think things are finally changing for the better.
B.E: So who is Brian Chilala?
M.B.: Well, he is a guy with sort of shortish dreadlocks and a funky cap, but he's a big man. I met him once in Lusaka, not knowing exactly who he was, except that he was a musician. He was obviously a critical guy. He was checking me out first. “Who is this white guy, and what does he want? Has he come to steal our music?” Anyway, we ironed that out OK. And like a year later, out comes this album. And now, Mondo Music are also doing this series called Zambian Legends, also a lot of forgotten music, like John and Joyce Nyirongo, the Serenje Kalindula Band, and also an Amayenge retrospective. That's good, and also has to do with the fact that there is such a thing as the "world music market." These are records that were meant for Zambians in the first place, but I think also, in the back of Mondo Music's head, we want to get into the European and Western markets. And that's a good thing, because Zambia has always had a very diverse musical culture, ethnically diverse, and culturally diverse, so that's good. I am pleased with the developments. I've had something to do with it, but it is the Zambians who must push their own music, and make good music, and new music coming from their own roots. I mean, that's what I want to hear as an individual, and as a musician.
B.E: And Brian Chilala gives you hope to that is happening?
M.B.: Oh man, there are couple of tracks on there. I mean, the drummer is so good as well. It's really happening. And the vocals, the background ladies. Wow! It's so energetic. This is what Zambia has always been, traditionally, and the kalindula years, and finally in 2004, this CD arrives. That's my personal opinion, my ears, my musical taste. Going back to the eighties, the The Five Revolutions were regarded by many as one of the best kalindula bands, and lo and behold, the only musician on my Zambush Vol. 1 compilation who is still alive is Morris Mwape, who is the one-time leader of the Five Revolutions. And he is just sitting in some township in Livingstone. He doesn't play anymore, but he’s a fantastic guy, and a good bandleader, a good songwriter. So someone should snap him up and give him a new pair of boots, and a new coat, a new guitar, and ask him to play his kalindula style. Why not? And maybe young cats, like Brian Chilala has already done, maybe other young Zambian cats will catch on. "Hey, maybe we can make a buck here.” And why not? Many musicians have created due to economic reasons. Mozart was one of them.
B.E: Tell me about the experience of making the Zambia Roadside record.
M.B.: Well, that was great. It can bring tears to my eyes. You know, you are out in the bush. It's dusty. Some people are starving in Southern Province, so you bring some mealy meal [ground corn] for them. But you have to have transport, four-wheel-drive. Otherwise you can't get out into the bush, and down into the Zambezi Valley, or wherever it is you want to go. So first you ask around. Some people have reputations. "Yah, you must record those ones. Go that side and find that guy." So you do your best. And sometimes you do find those ones and go that side. With a good microphone. Keep it out of the wind. Just with a DAT. If you put on your headphones while you are recording, you look like an astronaut to those people, so don't do it. Treat them with respect, as a musician, one fellow musician to another. It always helps, for God’s sake. That's what it's all about. Not, “Oh, I'm a big producer. I’m a hotshot. You sit there and play as I tell you."
No, no, no. I say give me your best five songs. I always arrange a price before they start, to say, "I'm paying you handsomely." By their standards. If you pay someone 50 US dollars and put that into kwacha [local currency], there are the toast of the village, and rightly so. And they suddenly get respect. “Hey, that strange white guy came and recorded that old guy playing old music. Why did he do that? Maybe I'm going to play that as well." That's how simple it can be. But looking for the musicians, and just the pleasure—I wouldn't say love, that sounds too religious—but just the pleasure of being with people, and I dig them and they dig me. And once you've recorded them, you give them the headphones, and they listen to themselves, and wow, it's a trip for everyone concerned. And when you drive out of there, all the kids are running after you as though you’re bloody Father Christmas, or some apparition.
B.E: And these guys are basically playing music to entertain their communities and families. They are not professionals.
M.B.: They are either just plain unemployed, or they are subsistence farmers. And they all play music. Some of them, like the Green Mambas are a wedding and party band, and they get asked, and they get paid in locally brewed chibuku millet beer, and maybe some money, or whatever. That's part of their income. And everyone has a ball, but alas, a lot of people also get AIDS in the process. And the kids with AIDS, it's just terrible. But still, the humor and friendliness always shine through.
B.E: What was your idea making that record? Did you know that there were these groups out there, or did you just go out there and see what you'd find?
M.B.: Well, I made recordings in 96, specifically, of the Batonga on both sides of Lake Kariba, which ended up on the Batonga Across the Waters CD, in Zambia and Zimbabwe, to show that this culture, which had been physically separated by this lake for 40 years, was still intact. They were cousins who hadn't spoken to each other for 40 years, because the lake is infested with crocodiles, and they ended up in two separate states, whereas before, it was all Rhodesia and Nyasaland, all British. But anyway, I had more recordings of guitar groups which never made it onto that disk, but I didn't have enough good recordings to do a general Southern Province album. That was irksome. That troubled me. I thought, "This is so great, and people don't know about it in Europe or the States, or Japan.” So I thought I must do something about this. So in 2002, I was very organized by this time, I had my own local transport waiting, which I hired, and with my interpreter and you name it. I had been e-mailing people. Zambians had e-mail by now, much more than in ‘96. Including me. So I got it together, and did it within three weeks, like the real muzungu, which is the word for a white person, rushing around. As the Zambians say, “Muzungu has the watch, but we have the time.”
Now, from that recording trip in 2002, I have almost another album in the bag, which I've remastered, and it's waiting here. Maybe I'll release it. I love that music. I'm very happy with my recordings. One thing I learned from Hugh Tracey is hold the microphone in your hand, so you can move it around. Don't place the musicians around them it. It is unnatural to them. They don't know. They don't have any recording experience. So you must decide which is the best spot, 5 cm forwards or backwards, or up or down. Which is the best? Where does it really sound good? And then all I did was watch my level. No over-modulation, then it must be good. Later, I put on the headphones and listened back to the recording, because to me, if you're doing a field recording with headphones on, what do you hear? You are hearing the recording. No, I want to hear the music. If your microphone is good, it will do a good job.
So that was a Hugh Tracey thing. He never wore headphones or looked like an alien, or an astronaut. And the other thing is, you have to put the musicians at ease. That's very important. Don't be arrogant. Don't say, "I'm paying you money. You do what I want." No. “I'm a fellow musician. Come on. I want to record you. I think it's really groovy. It's good music. It sounds good to me.” "Okay, okay. Let's do some more." And they get more and more enthusiastic, and after awhile I say, "Listen, I really have to go.” I have to go to another village that's like 15 miles further on. And if it's a bush road, it'll take half the day, if you make it all before nightfall.
B.E: So you arrived without warning in these places, and just made friends.
M.B.: Local community FM radio, on the second trip, told people, "He is here to record." Some of them came to the radio station. "He's coming on Tuesday." It was great for me, and easy. So I paid their bus fare and travel expenses, and an overnight stop or whatever, because some of them came walking through the bush for two days with their thumb piano. Otherwise, I would go out, and they would know that I'm out and about in the province. What happens also is you arrive in a village and say, "I've come to record." And some little kid is sent off into the bush or into the fields. "Go and get your dad. Go and get Papa, because he's a good musician. I'm sure that this white man will want to record him." So then you hang around for hours, and finally the guy ambles out of the bush and sounds absolutely great, and you give him the money, and his wife tries to get some before he spends it all on beer and smoke. Because money is to be spent. You don't save money, that's just stupid. So all these experiences are such an enrichment, but I want to present this music to a discerning and happy listening audience, just purely because I love that music, and to me, it is totally honest.
B.E: Is that album out in Zambia?
M.B.: No. Because my production costs are in euros. That's the only reason. There are some [outlets], two or three in Lusaka and at the Choma Museum, and in Livingstone, where, alas, I think it is mostly white tourists who buy that album. So I have three distribution points. It's a pity. But the Batonga album, I had cassettes made. Every time I go there, I still give them out. And people are so pleased. They say, "Hey, this is our music." Sure, it's your music. It's not my music. I just recorded it. And if I break even with the production costs, and even make a little so-called profit, that goes towards the next field trip. So I don't see myself as a cultural imperialist.
B.E: Mondo Music makes the claim that there is a musical renaissance going on in Zambia. Do you believe that?
M.B.: No. But that is a musical matter to me. It's not a renaissance. The JKs of this world are not using their own musical roots and cultural roots to create something new. Again, I am not a purist. Create something new, contemporary music, music of today, but if you're Zambian, I want to hear that you're from Zambia, and the computer programming that is used on those records, the production, it sounds as though it is coming from somewhere else. Too much. It doesn't sound Zambian enough for me. Now Brian Chilala, there's no MIDI there, they are just playing and hitting it. But I suppose it is a matter of opinion, and also of someone's economics. If some people think there's a renaissance, that's okay. I don't.
Michael Baird-2006
Interview by Banning Eyre
Newcastle, England,2005
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