Tribute to Gito Baloi

by Daniel Brown

Article published on the 2008-09-04 Latest update 2008-09-05 15:34 TU

Gito Baloi
(Photo: Baloi family)

One of Africa's most talented bass players, Gito Baloi, was gunned down by car thiefs on 4 April 2004. In September 2008, his close friend and collaborator Dave Reynolds released a posthumous album of ten previously unreleased songs. They pay homage to the virtuosity and lyrical depth of the 39-year-old who braved hostile frontiers and poverty to become one of South Africa's best bass players. World Tracks talked to Reynolds about the album release as well African Moods, a pan-African CD by the steelpan player.

Dave Reynolds has devoted much of 2008 to Beyond, an album that enriches the lyrics and singing of Gito Baloi, with sophisticated contributions by musicians like Makati Molekwa on bass, vocalist Pedro da Silva Pinto and Reynolds himself on steelpans.

The album focuses on Baloi’s concerns for the environment, peace and love. It includes Baloi’s final recording, “Sinto me bein”, or “I feel Good”. The studio session took place only two months before his death and, for Reynolds, it is a reflection of the bassist’s life and career.

“It shows how much fun he was having,” he told RFI during a June visit to Paris, “He was feeling so lucky to be a musician and be able to live from it. He couldn’t believe he was earning money from doing something he loved. So this is a very special song on Beyond."

“Music has a universal feeling,” Baloi told RFI a few years before his death. "It’s just like the instruments themselves. You don’t understand them, you just like what you hear. And you can relate to any kind of music in the world.”

Baloi’s philosophical approach to music has been an inspiration for Reynolds. It pushed the steelpan player towards the creation of a project called Grassroots which sees musicians from all over southern Africa coming together to record cross-cultural songs.

The latest result is African Moods, an exchange with artists from Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Reynolds felt crossing borders artistically has never been so important.

Reynolds believes that musicians have a responsibility to create something of use for society.

"We want to forge an identity based on something universal: love, belonging, acceptance and understanding," he told me. "With the Grassroots project, we made the conscious decision to work with other musicians from the southern African region and their respective languages. We want each musician to bring something from their specific region to this project."

The recent xenophobic attacks in South African does not have very complex roots, according to Reynolds.

“They all arise from a situation that has been badly managed or ignored,” he insisted. “People have been patient, they are ready for change. Change won’t be difficult…as soon as it starts."

The cornerstone of the Grassroots concept was two songs composed and sung by Gito Baloi. “Mpumalanga” and “Shimishweni”, included on African Moods, were recorded one early morning, “straight off the bat”.

“That was very much Gito’s style. He composed everything on his feet, so to speak," said Reynolds.

"I was honoured that he partook in the creation of Grassroots with these two songs," he concluded. "It was just a matter of taking the spirit of what Gito and I did during that recording and sharing it was other musicians like us. And that’s how Grassroots grew.”