Jama'a, Sallama
It's been quite a while since I appeared on the board -- and as regulars would note, my musings are mainly about the muse in Hausa popular arts. I am afraid all the other "big" topics are way beyond my ken, so I prefer something less cerebral!
I have just returned from Abu Dhabi, UAE, where I participated in an expert's meeting on Why Preserve our Musical Heritage for the Future? The meeting was at the instance of Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, ADACH, and mediated by Maison des Cultures du Monde of Paris. It is the first of a series of start-up activities that will eventually lead to the establishment of the Ai Ain Center for the Study of Music in the World of Islam. The Center will serve as an international repository of musics from different parts of the Islamic world.
Perhaps I should point out that an earlier meeting to establish the Center in Assilah, Morocco in 2006, and of which I was also a participant, established right away that the focus of the Center will not be on the theological debates about the position of music in Islam. Suffice to say that Muslims perform musics, even if unintentionally, e.g. when doing the call to the prayer, or reciting the Qur'an in a melodious manner. What is the timber, quality, pitch of these "performances", how does the idea of Muslim identity shape these unintended performances? Further, the Center is not intended to be a place to study only Islamic musical performances -- e.g. Sufi bandir (frame drum) performances. So long as you are a Muslim and engage in music or performance within the social space of your culture, your activity becomes a focus of the Center. With a proviso -- it must be heritage music; i.e. traditional. So hip-hop, Nanaye (Hausa Technopop), disco etc, even if performed by Muslims, is out of the purview of the center.
As a result of the Morocco meeting, in July 2008 a group of seven experts were convened at Al Ain, a beautiful city about 150 km away from Abu Dhabi to brainstorm and come up with a master plan for the Center. It was held in Abu Dhabi because the emirate has agreed to establish the center as part of its long-range plans of engagement in cultural discourse, which was signaled by the establishment of Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH). I was one of the seven, and we had a thoroughly engaging time and came up with a blueprint after two days. The recent meeting at Abu Dhabi on 3rd and 4th October 2009 is the first in a series of start-up activities to actualize the center, which will open in Abu Dhabi in 2011. It is therefore critical that the first item on its agenda is to question its own existence --
why preserve our musical heritage?
A total of 19 papers were presented from various parts of a large swathe of the Muslim world. Mine was the only from Africa. The core of my presentation revolves around the fact that traditional musics all over the world are in danger -- and more so in Hausa societies where the encroachment of transnational musics -- rap, disco, reggae, Black electrotechno, etc -- sees the acquisition of Yamaha series of soft- synthesizers by Hausa "musicians" who doodle out tunes to the voices of boys and girls patterned around Hindi film soundtrack singers. Most of the old classical traditional Hausa musicians are dead -- Jankidi, Narambada, Dan Anace, Shata etc. Most of the living -- e.g. Gambu, Wayam, Dan Indo, Ahmadu Doka, etc -- don't want their children to succeed them, or they have "repented" (Gambu and Doka) from music altogether because they consider it bad. The new transnational Hausa sound, "Nanaye" or Hausa Technopop with its girl-choir and Indian superstructure is fine and good. It is simply another one of the evolving genres of music in developing countries. I state this in case someone would consider me a boring old fogey interested only in kalangu, and therfore “not modern”. I have extremely eclectic musical tastes -- and have a 180 GB collection of musics from all over the world and in all genres (I particularly love rap!).
However, it is this eclecticism that drove me into the traditional musical heritage lane. Our music is dying and is being replaced by non-music; for no matter how hard you try to justify it,
Nanaye
is not music, but just doodling; it is not based on any specified musical theory or direction. But since they are set on it and see it as "modernity", fine, it can be continued, for I care less about it -- and not because it is a threat to the traditional musics, but simply because it is horribly composed and for the most part, tuneless. Again regulars to this board will remember how the British Council enabled me to experiment with fusion music – often combining Hausa rap lyrics with traditional ensemble. We did that with Amada Ra (Barmani Choge), Kukuma Rap (Arewa) and Pulaar Rap (Naziru Hausawa). The purpose was to show that modern and traditional can co-exist.
My argument for the preservation of Hausa traditional musics therefore revolved around the strategy of transforming the genre. By "transforming" I mean
dislocating
it from its standard perception of "roko" praise-singing, and elevating it to a start of artistic expression. Doing this requires a revolutionary approach that needs a whole range of skills. I created a blueprint for this. But I went one step further by actually forming a traditional band, and RECORDING their music. The band is called "Gari Ya Waye" (start of new day), while the first album, which we recorded last year, is called "Alfijir" (dawn) -- both the names were written in Ajami and English on the cover of the CD. Sorry, but for some bizarre reason, I can't post the CD covers with this post. In fact the whole posting kept jiggling up and down and it is tough enough to get a word in edgeways. Sigh.
Alfijir, the CD, is a the first in an anticipated series of improvisations in Hausa Traditional Music. Volume Two will feature the solos of the instruments used in Volume One (Alfijir).
Alfijir is made up of four tracks. These are: Alfijir (15.11), Karen Mota (14.33), Arziki (14.39) and Shauki (3.00). Three soloists were combined together in a single performance. These are Suleiman (flute), Auwalu (duman girke bongo drums) and Aliyu (gurmi, long-necked lute). I hope to upload a small sampler of the CD (containing the first five minutes each of the main tracks) to YouTube (check under my alias, zoborodo, and see what else I have uploaded!). But this will be, insha Allah, next month (November) when I hope to be in Cologne, Germany, and where the bandwidth is faster. When I do the upload, I will post in this forum. Sorry, but I can't upload the Emirate or Shantu CDs (see below) because they are copyrighted. But as I said, you can purchase them online, and at Amazon you can actually purchase selected MP3 tracks only.
The performances on this CD are revolutionary for three reasons:
first
, instruments not used to being in concert with others (except perhaps the duman girke) are combined together. I was a bit nervous initially because I insisted that each instrument should be recorded ALONE. It was only later that we mixed the three recordings together into the finished tracks (with of course makes it possible to produce a second CD containing the original solo performances). We deliberately did not want the musicians to be affected by the performances of one another -- thus they were recorded individually. They were a bit unsettled themselves because they are used to hearing each other -- so alone, with only a headphone and being asked to play for as long as they can was new to them. Thanks to Naziru Hausawa of Golden Goose Studios, Kano, Nigeria, for this revolutionary strategy!
Secondly
, the tracks are long - the main tracks lasting more than 14 minutes. We stopped at 15 minutes simply because the recording studio was HOT! There was no AC or fan! Otherwise my intention was to record each track for 35 minutes. This differs from the three to four minute track length of traditional Hausa musics (with of course few exceptions either Bakandamiya or some of Shata's longer expositions of on one person -- e.g. Habu Na Habu).
Thirdly
, there are no vocals at all on any of the tracks - unusual feat in Hausa music which is vocal-focused; in fact Hausa music does not really exist as such, it is more of Hausa poetry or vocal performance. Can anyone recall the music or its significance in any of Shata's composition? Few, probably. But everyone remembers the SONGS because of their poetic quality and excellence. Well in Gari Ya Waye -- indicating a new direction for Hausa music -- our focus is on showcasing the playing instruments and their harmony, rather than the singing of anyone or what they will say in the songs.
I presented this CD at the end of my presentation as an example of a proactive strategy to preserve and SUSTAIN Hausa music -- I also played exercepts. I went with 10 copies thinking maybe three or four people might be interested. I was literally mobbed for all the 10, with more people asking for their copies! Most of the audience have never heard music from Africa in this format! I also advocated another strategy of sustenance of Hausa traditional musics, this is reproduction. Often you hear critics of Hausa traditional musics saying that "it is dead" because the practitioners are dead. So are Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler, Bach, Stravinsky, Chopin and whole host of other classical composers. Yet their CDs are being produced every day -- CDs of the same symphonies, concertos, sonatas, etc. We could do the same with Jankidi's music -- reproducing it with young traditional musicians (who exist -- just attend the Wedding Fatiha of any "big man" in Kano, and you will see them). That way, we keep Jankidi forever in people's memory, just like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony remains everlasting in Europe.
In order to be provide an institutional backing for all these proactive measures, I also formed an NGO, Foundation for Hausa Performance Arts, which hopefully will serve as an Africa nucleus of the Center for the Study of Music in the World Islam. I avoided government because I know I would be wasting my time. The NGO is composed of many local ethnomusicologists and researchers with a practical focus to solving community problems. In additional to Alfijir CD, there are other exciting recordings that showcase the preservation of Hausa traditional musics. The first is a CD titled Nigéria. musique haoussa, traditions de l’Emirate de Kano, which was recorded in France after a festival, and features Nasiru Garba Supa, Dankaka Rogo, and women shantu musicians. It is available at Amazon for less than eight dollars.
The CD was a joint venture between Maison des Cultures du Monde and the Alliance Francaise, Kano. Ironic -- despite our resources, we had to rely on outsiders to preserve our heritage.
The second CD is even more experimental than Alfijir. It is a FUSION music CD -- the first in traditional music history. Some of you might remember a Music Festival held December 2007, at Alliance Francaise, Kano, Nigeria. Well one of the bands that performed that night was Mezcal Jazz Unit. This is a group of four French jazz musicians who came for the festival, and later recorded a CD with Shantu musicians. Shantu music is a female music performance using an aerophone (shantu) made from a gourds. It is dying performance -- but thanks to the Kano State History and Culture Bureau, it is kept alive in international performances (alas, not national due to the various problems that relate to public performances of music, especially by women). Here is the description of the CD:
“Following their first meeting during the Nigerian Festival of Kano, the Kamfest 2008, French jazz group Mezcal Jazz Unit and traditional hausa group Shantu met again in Kano for a joint project of musical creation. This creation must be seen as a real bridge between the two cultures via both authentic and peaceful exchanges, through music. Two cultures, two countries, one music! Mezcal Jazz Unit, whose identity is maintained by regular confrontation with musical groups from all horizons, is one of the rare groups capable of engaging in artistic collaborations so smooth and fluid that they appear spontaneous. Their quartet is based on the clearly established principle of openness, allowing for a continuous invitation of "jazz" and "non jazz" artists. Shantu draw his inspiration from everyday life, aware of the important role music plays in hausa society, where they often bring popular aspirations before an enlarged audience. Consequently, they celebrate, turn by turn, the big and the small events. To give rhythm to their words, they sit right on the ground close to one another in a crescent, tapping long and strange hollowed out and decorated calabashes called "shantus". In their songs, the tone of the voice, in accordance with the themes and the target, conserves its natural accent. Yet the two groups drink from the same spring of melodies, sometimes simple sometimes sophisticated, fragrance of past songs, melodies of yesterday. “
Thus Shantu (the CD) provides a gender balance by addressing music performance of women, and for women (men allowed, though!) -- a rare feat in traditional society, especially considering that only Barmani Choge is still chugging it out. It is available all over the place, but mainly at CDUniverse at about $17, but at Amazon it is about $19. . You can actually watch some of the festival fusion 12 minute performance at
Mezcal Jazz Unit invites SHANTU , or
http://www.videosurf.com/video/mezcal-jazz-unit-invites-shantu-63791694.These same Shantu musicians were actually invited to play at the Emirates Palace Hotel, Abu Dhabi on 1st October 2009 in preparation to the conference on preservation of musical heritage. I was with them backstage and did some video recordings as well as extensive interviews with them -- and Nasiru Garba Supa, who also performed. I am planning to produce a short documentary on preservation of traditional musical heritage through my production company, Visually Ethnographic Productions. So watch this space!
Abdalla