Morganics

I step onto the tarmac and the heat hits me, the sense of space, the size of the sky, the warmth of the air. After Europe it feels like I am back in Australia. In the rich red and orange fading colours of the African sunset we walk across the runway to the small building that is Kilimanjaro airport. Trundling through immigration and customs I am inadvertently covered with litres of mosquito repellent that the expensive action clothing wearing European hordes are spraying onto themselves in accordance with their action guidebooks. I step through to the other side and see a group of five people; four Tanzanian guys and a white woman calling out,

“Welcome Morganics! Welcome to Tanzania!”. They are jumping and dancing on the spot and I am overwhelmed. Donna, the Australian woman running the charity here in Tanzania, my contact, introduces herself and the guys in a blur of movement.

“Morganics this is the Wayahudi Family, Maxwell, Nico and Frankie and my husband Nas.” They all grab my luggage and give me a Wayahudi Family T-shirt. As we walk to the four-wheel drive, Maxwell grabs my attention and says in a deep, earnest voice

“Morganics, I have 52 songs memorised, we are ready to record the album.”

We pile into the jeep, Nas is driving, Donna is in the passenger seat, myself and the MCs in the back. The warm air blows through the windows as we speed down the dirt road. The energy is wild, they are so excited, I’ve never been welcomed like this before and thankfully their English is as good as my Swahili is non-existent. As the sun dips to render the surrounds only as an inky silhouette of the sort of vistas I have seen on African safari documentaries, I start beatboxing. Nico quickly starts rhyming in Swahili and it seems like he is freestyling, I’m impressed. Not to be outdone, Frankie jumps in with a written verse and then Maxwell bursts into song – this fella can sing! Fingers are clicking, the car is bumping, and I am filming with my video camera, trying to capture the moment, as I freestyle back at them. We go back and forth for what seems like both a minute and an hour before we arrive at Donna’s house.

Security doors are swung open by Doggo, a little fella who looks about fourteen and a bigger guy who never talks much but he is the Maasai security guard. They are both smiling widely, and the dogs are barking as they usher us into the house. I am shown to my room, and I barely have time to shower before a fantastic feed is laid out; spaghetti with Napoletana sauce, cooked corn and potatoes and spinach, all so much better than airline food, so tasty, all fresh from the market I am told. It’s already late though and my jetlag has definitely arrived, so the four fellas retire to their room, and I to mine to get some sleep before the first day tomorrow. 

Groggy in the morning, I stumble out of my bedroom to find all the guys literally dancing in the loungeroom – and I mean dancing. There is a local CD on the stereo and the guys are really getting down as they all start yelling out for me to join in. I have to step beyond my jet lag and inhibitions, and I start getting into it, feeling the tunes. There is a joyousness which is so fresh, almost naïve that I just have to give myself to it, they turn up the stereo a little more and we bounce around the lounge room taking turns sharing the spotlight – Good morning Africa!

By the time I have showered, Frankie has layed out a great breakfast of toast, eggs, fried tomatoes and tea for me. Little Doggo – who it turns out is actually 18 but just looks so young and is so small because of malnutrition – is asking me if I have any laundry. Donna is out for the day, so we get busy setting up the “studio” i.e., my bedroom. We get a desk from the lounge room, prop it against the wall, next to a cartoon drawing of a kangaroo and a photo of Mount Kilimanjaro – which is only 45 minutes’ drive away. We find a few chairs for the guys, I unpack my laptop, SM58 mike, Joe Meek mike pre-amp, the headphones I bought in London on the way to the airport and a spaghetti looking mix of leads. The only thing we don’t have is speakers but Nico – who is quickly establishing himself as the leader of the group – has brought his surround sound computer speakers. With his permission I separate the two main speakers from the group of five and set them up either side of my laptop. I play a track to check the speakers – no they’re not $5,000 monitor speakers, but they’ll do. We all step back and check out the studio with big grins on our faces – this is going to be fun.

After lunch we sit down and have a more in-depth talk. I am still working out exactly who does what.

“I MC, I want to learn how to produce so that when you are gone I can produce for other street kids” Nico says earnestly, instantly gaining my respect.

“I sing and rap a bit too, but I also do painting, I am still learning from my teacher, traditional style” Maxwell tells me.

“I am one of the Wayahudi Family too, and I like to rap” says Frankie with a big smile.

It turns out that these guys have been together for five years, they are between 17 and 20 years old and all ex-street kids, most of them the only ones alive from their family, their brothers and sisters being victims of HIV. They have recorded two songs in the capital Dar Es Saalam where there is a thriving industry of the local music style “Bongo Flava”. They play me the songs that they saved up to record with the local producers. They are really melodic, Maxwell’s singing is great, Nico’s rap is solid, but all the instrumentation is Casio; thin, electronic and generic.

“That sounds great guys, but I think it would be great if we could hear where we are you from if you know what I mean? Sample local instruments, traditional songs that sort of stuff?” I say.

“We don’t play any instruments, but I sing a lot of traditional songs.” Maxwell says.

“Cool, well at some stage you should sing them to me and maybe we can use some of them for the album?”

“But we want to do a Hip Hop album, people here don’t want to hear traditional songs, they hear them all the time.” Nico points out

“OK, I understand, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to make the whole album traditional, don’t worry I’m a Hip Hop producer. I want your stuff sounding tough, good kicks and snares, but maybe we can use a little bit of local stuff to add flavour, bring me any CDs you have of local stuff that we can sample, that kind of thing?”

The meeting continues, they have already heard my CDs that I had sent over to them, I play them some Senegalese Hip Hop – Daara J – and a CD of Timbaland instrumentals that I got on the street in New York and explain that I’d like to do something that is sort of in-between the two. They say they want some songs that would be good for the club and some for the radio, some love songs, some more political songs talking about how the government tries to deny that there are any street kids in Tanzania.

“Sounds great to me” I say, “Let’s have lunch and get into it.”

“Paracheechy” Doggo says again, patiently.

“Par – a – cheech – ee” I repeat.

He laughs, nods and smiles.

“Avocado, eh?” I say, “It sounds better in Swahili”

We dine on fresh, market bought paracheechy, tomato – they actually taste like tomatoes! – bread, tea and papaya before we all head back into the studio.

It quickly becomes apparent that they know what they want, which is great.

“This track goes; intro, first verse, bridge, chorus, second verse, bridge, chorus, outro.” Maxwell says with authority.

“A bridge?” I think to myself, “Woa, this is some next level stuff, we don’t normally do bridges in Hip Hop.”

“Can you sing it for me, and I will start to make the beat yeah?” I say.

They look at each other slightly nervous, I load up my empty track and prime my sample bank of recently acquired percussion sounds that I got in Brazil.

“Cool, go for it.”

They burst into a full volume chorus with a rap by Nico. My fingers fly over my laptop keyboard, selecting samples and quickly assembling a beat

“How’s that?” I ask.

“Faster!” says Maxwell.

“More energy!” says Nico.

“OK, keep doing it.” I respond, kicking up the tempo and selecting some cowbells to add some “energy.”

“That’s better.” from Nico.

“We need bass.” from Maxwell.

I select some bass samples, auditioning the sounds for them until they are happy.

“Now we need some keys.” Maxwell requests.

I search through my sound bank created over the last year or so of CD digging until one sample seems to fit in. The guys chat amongst themselves in Swahili, and Nico says

“That’s good, we like what you are doing, you are faster than the guys in who run the studios in Dar Es Salaam, and you are listening to our ideas.”

“Asante Sanaa.” I respond.

“No, thank you!” says Maxwell with a laugh “Let’s record yeah?”