Words by: Richard Rumney – Mr X & ex participant
Day 2 at the Red Bull Music Academy Taster turned out to be a day focused on South African music legends from seemingly opposite ends of the country’s broad musical spectrum.
First onto the couch was Theo Crouse, once guitarist for the new South Africa’s first rock n roll superstars, the Springbok Nude Girls, and owner and manager of one of the country’s most successful music studios in Bellville down in the Western Cape. Most of the session with Theo seemed to revolve around the many exploits of the Nude Girls during their heyday. An amazingly chilled guy, whose vocabulary almost entirely comprises of the ‘F’ word, Theo is an example to the music makers of South African, who struggle to believe that they can make a living from music, that if you want to do something, you should just do it, because you should never do anything that makes you unhappy. It sounds remarkably simple, but so many of us need a reminder of this simple truth, especially when it comes to the murky waters of the music industry.
Next up, in place of Klinikal who had to cancel due to his commitments as a doctor, was Fletcher, partially responsible for South Africa’s best electronic-beats-and-breaks record label African Dope, and a producer and DJing legend all to himself. Fletch came in to show participants firstly how to get a ‘Wobble’ sound out of a synthesiser. The Wobble is a name given to the low-slung, pulsating bassline sound predominant in genres such as dubstep, drum n bass and glitch-hop which is an invaluable skill to add to one’s arsenal of party tricks. He also showed off his latest experimentation with synching his Ableton Live production sets with his VJing sets to perfectly marry the two staples of dancefloor entertainment.
To end off the day of legends, Ivan invited Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse to the couch. Just about everyone in South Africa knows Sipho and his song, what to me is honestly one of the best pop songs of all times, Burn Out, but his musical life story is of epic proportions. He recounted early life as a teenager in the band, the Beaters who would become Harare, and how they went from being a touring pop band to go on to join the massive outspoken cultural opposition to Apartheid that would characterise many of South Africa’s best music in the 80’s. The participants wasted no time in connecting with Sipho and picking his brains for the mammoth amount of musical wisdom locked therein. His stories of working with people such as Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba were really emotional moments and, despite being such a high-calibre musician, his humility and gracious presence made the afternoon really magical. He ended off speaking about his daughter, Mpho, a UK singer on the rise and how he would love to work with her. Watch this space.
After lectures, the sound engineers wasted no time in setting up the top recording studio for a session with Hotstix and Theo Crouse. The separate tracks of the top studio sessions are bare-bone projects at the moment, but potential remix gold once all the participants get a chance to play around with the songs. Downstairs the house cats fired up Logic to lay down some fours-to-the-floors and deep oceanic basslines, while Sibot cranked up the volume in Ableton to record the emcees in the house over some twisted glitch-hop.
Later on upstairs, Trevor Jackson, the main man for Friday’s session, found the inspiration to start producing a disco track complete with live drums, bass and cowbell, of course. The music from ‘A Third World Perspective’ is far from complete but the ideas really sound amazing so far, and it’s only been two days. Everyone can’t wait to hear what comes out.
Red Bull Photofiles
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