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So Kalmery
New album: Brakka system
Paris
03/02/2009 -
So Kalmery, the roving ambassador of brakka (a vibrant music-and-dance style from his native Congo), is back in the spotlight with a new album, Brakka System. The fruition of more than thirty years wandering the globe, Brakka System is not just an album - it's a journey through a lifetime, a musical voyage deep into the heart of one man's soul!
So Kalmery: Because my music takes time to mature. My new album took even longer to mature than usual because I decided to work with full orchestration this time round. I'm fed up with being labelled as an acoustic musician. There have been times in my career, you know, where I've conducted orchestras of between 17 and 20 people. My new live show is not just about me up on stage, it involves four musicians and two dancers as well - and images of Africa are projected up on a screen behind me as I play!
You've always defined yourself as an upholder of brakka tradition. Brakka is still not really that well-known abroad…
Brakka's an urban sound that revolves around guitar, flute and percussion. It was hugely popular in pre-independence days, but began to disappear when missionaries arrived and started introducing Cuban music to East Africa. Brakka bears traces of all sorts of musical influences - a touch of Mali, a touch of Nigeria (thanks to the Hausa who travelled through East Africa selling their cloth) and traces of southern and central Africa. Spokes Mashiyane, "the king of kwela", adopted brakka and so did the Congolese guitarist Jean Bosco Mwenda. There are a lot more harmonies going on in brakka than there are in rumba and brakka is structured by extremely rhythmic guitar-playing. Brakka is a very physical music to dance to, it's like traditional Zulu dances in that respect. As for the lyrics of the songs, these tend to be about serious things like morals, education or imparting a certain philosophy of life.
Your own songs cover everything from love to the feeling of being physically uprooted from one's home…
I've been criticised a lot in the past for being too revolutionary, so I thought I'd do a couple of love songs like Brand New Day and All What You Need is Love. There's another song on the album called Hey Mama Liza, "hey" means "come on!" - it's a sort of hidden message, a call to join the anti-colonial struggle, that accompanies brakka dance steps. Harambe, a term invented by Kenyatta* can mean either "unite" or "disappear" and Regea - "come back!" in Swahili - is about being uprooted from your homeland. It's the story of my life. I left my homeland when my father died in 1961/1962. My father, David Kalmery, was close to Lumumba* and when Lumumba was arrested they rounded up everyone who had been connected to him and eliminated them all. My father's body was never found. I've looked everywhere for him ever since. After Lumumba's death, we ended up in this refugee camp in Zambia and I've spent the rest of my life wandering ever since. All these years have gone by, but I can still picture myself as this little kid running and running. For many years of my life I walked around vowing I'd get my revenge one day. But as you get older, you come to realise that love is the only way of resolving conflict.
But don't you believe in the idea of artist as warrior?
Yes, in the positive sense of the word "warrior." There's a song on my new album called Warria where I pay tribute to all those legendary figures who've fought through their music - Fela, Armstrong, Peter Tosh, Miles Davis, Luambo (Franco), Nico, Tino Barosa and Jimi Hendrix - without forgetting my personal idol and role model, Spokes Mashiyane.
There's another absolutely magical track on your new album called Kamitik Soul where you play the oud which adds a very melancholy note to things …
Kamitik is the real name of the African people. You know, I really believe that we can change the way people think in Africa, but we have to begin by being very careful in our choice of words. I'm passionate about string instruments like the oud and the inanga, the harp from the Great Lakes. These instruments were used in the past to accompany the great epic poems. And I'm keen to remind people that the oud is actually an African instrument. I had my own oud specially made for me in Australia.
Well, the Aborigines play the didgeridoo with a system of continuous breathing. It's a symbol of harmony - if you stop blowing at any point, you break the harmony! When Aborigines play the didgeridoo they believe they are sending out a message to the universe and the universe has to stop and listen. I'm like the Aborigines in that respect, I believe that the Earth is a thinking entity. Brakka has the same cosmic dimension to it as Gnawa music or Sufism.
Is singing in Swahili also an important symbolic gesture on your part?
Swahili is the most commonly spoken language in Africa. It's studied at universities everywhere. Swahili is a universal language which has absorbed words from all sorts of other languages around the globe including Arabic.
One of the most striking things about your new album is that you chose to work with musicians from very different backgrounds, collaborating with everyone from Patrick Bebey to Daby Touré and Hilaire Penda…
It took years for this album to come to fruition. But it took just a few hours to record Brakka System in the studio under live conditions. This is music that's played straight from the guts and I needed to work with musicians who weren't just simply going to show up on the day, but throw themselves into it body and soul. I needed them to give everything they had!
Concert at La Bellevilloise (Paris) on 3 February 2009
*Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya
*Patrice Lumumba, the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo, was imprisoned and murdered under controversial circumstances.
Sylvie Clerfeuille
Translation : Julie Street
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