The teachings of Maurice Kirya

2010 winner ends his African tour

Dakar 

04/04/2011 - 

As he came to the end of a long tour of Africa that took in 22 venues, and in the lead-up to his final concert in Paris on 4 April, the Ugandan singer Maurice Kirya gave RFI Music his first overview of the human and musical adventure that has impacted his professional and personal life.

I learned things during this tour that gave me opportunities and experiences I had never known before. When you go out to meet different cultures, languages and nations, you realise that everyone thinks and reacts in a different way. When I wrote a song like Misubbaawa, for example, I was in Uganda and everything I felt was linked to that context.

This West African tour led me to think a lot more about what type of instrumentation people would react to, the subjects they wanted people to talk to them about, and how to talk to them and get them moving. I’ve been giving concerts since the start, but it’s different to play for people who don’t understand what you say, because you need to leave them with the impression that they’ve understood you.

For all of those reasons, now I know that I’m going to redo quite a few things on the second album I’d started working on. Every day, my group comes up with new ideas and so we’re going to use what we tried out during this tour.

In fact, I’ve often noticed that in cities, especially capitals, audiences are more attentive to what you say and the way the music progresses, whereas in smaller towns, they want to have fun and dance. And not just listen. 

It’s really moving to see people in the audience shut their eyes during a particular track. Sometimes, when we sing Wooye or do Malaika, the auditorium is practically praying or the women might be crying. But of course no one’s going to see me cry… The music almost has a spiritual effect and then you tell yourself that you’re on the right track. I don’t want to play so that people just have a good time that evening and then completely forget me the next day. My aim is that for the rest of their lives they’ll associate me with a song.

In the family I come from we sing all the time and all my brothers are in music. For me, when I sing, the world opens up. Some people take drugs to reach a certain place, but I use the stage. It’s like a therapy. I want each chord I play to sound out, and every string, and each bit of the drums. And if I sing in a certain way, it’s not to show what I can do, it’s to bring out a particular emotion that the audience won’t be able to forget, as sharp and clean as a knife blade.

On stage, I’m not just a singer or an entertainer, I’m like a preacher or a teacher. It’s difficult to explain. You need to be there when I sing with the group to realise just how seriously we take each note.

To be here, on tour, really feels like being in a kind of school where you keep on learning. I’ve started to listen to a lot more West African music, even if it’s just to know what’s going on and keep informed.

In Zinder, in Niger, the director introduced us to a few musicians. I knew a bit about the desert blues, but not as much as I do now. Playing for another musician pushes you to criticise yourself and so improve yourself, because if you get things wrong or if you aren’t any good, he’ll know!

In Nouakchott we played to a full house. During the concert, the lighting technician lit up the audience and I burst out laughing. I said to them: “I’m sorry, but I didn’t think there would be so many of you.” And they started to laugh too. They participated and sang the songs, we weren’t expecting that. I had never even heard of Nouakchott before, and when I found out a bit about it, I imagined that it would be a difficult show. In the end, it was one of the best we did, with some very professional organisers who were really attentive to us. But there was something I disliked in Mauritania and that was all the checkpoints on the road. We arrived from Saint-Louis in Senegal and every five minutes we had to stop, it was really irritating. I don’t known how long it took us to get to Nouakchott, but I can tell you that the next time I go to Mauritania I’ll definitely go by plane!

The last concert on the African tour took place in Conakry, Guinea. My guitar packed up after three songs, which gave me a chance to be accompanied just by the piano. It wasn’t planned that way, but we did a few songs and it was really lovely.

The next stop is Paris. I’m very much looking forward to playing at the New Morning. I know a bit about the venue, people have told me a lot about it and it’s an honour and a privilege to be playing there. It makes me think that things are really moving in the right direction for me, and I hope I’m right. One thing’s for sure: I’m going to give it my everything.

Maurice Kirya (with Bertrand Lavaine)

Performing with the Institut français at Paris, New Morning, 5th april 2011.