The day used
to end the same way around the world. After the work was done, families and
communities would gather around a fire. They would sing, dance, tell stories,
distill learning into proverbs.
The fire
that brought us together still burns, insists the American-Ugandan power duo
Nsimbi. On their eponymous debut (release: June 22, 2018), the Kampala-born
star hip hop MC and storyteller GNL Zamba and gifted American singer-songwriter
Miriam Tamar trace age-old wisdom that can and should inform modern life, using
traditional East African instruments and sounds in utterly contemporary ways.
“The album
was inspired by ancient Swahili proverbs, but it centers around African
culture, more generally, the ancient insights it conveys,” Zamba explains. “We
want to show people today how relevant that knowledge is. We want to promote
that oneness this knowledge suggests.”
“The
transition to modernity is a big theme on this album. We were looking for roots
and we found them in Swahili proverbs,” Tamar agrees. “Every song is based on a
proverb. They are the thread, but it all keeps coming back to our need for
human connections to thrive.” These connections weave together sonically, via
instruments from kalimba to kora, into tight, grooving songs.
These songs
are a natural outgrowth of a musical partnership that began several years ago
in Kampala, where Zamba and Tamar met. Tamar managed a recording studio, having
left a position in the troubled northern part of the country at an NGO
dedicated to peace education and recovery after years of devastating war. She
had come to the Ugandan capital to focus on her music and began working for a
label.
At the
studio, she ran into Zamba, a legend on the burgeoning Ugandan hip hop scene
who had racked up numerous awards, producing gigs, and brand sponsorships. The
two connected, and when Zamba was looking for a singer for a
government-supported track to raise HIV awareness, he called on Tamar. The song
is credited with making a significant impact, Zamba notes. They went on to more
collaborations, as part of Zamba’s hip hop label.
“I was
singing more pop and hip hop,” Tamar recalls. “I didn’t really have a strong
idea about my voice or message at that point, but I knew I wanted to be singing
and writing. I was experimenting and figuring out what I needed to do that felt
closer to my own vision.” Then, after five years in Uganda, events drew Tamar
back to the States. In the year she spent alone in the US, she found her voice,
writing and recording a solo EP, Firedance. The EP debuted in the top five of
the iTunes world chart, garnering strong reviews and significant YouTube views.
When Zamba
came and joined her in America, he began to explore new ideas. Though he had
collaborated with traditional and acoustic musicians in Uganda, his focus and
his claim to fame were his accomplishments as a hip hop MC. Known as a “ghetto
storyteller” for his frank portrayals of life in Kampala, “I grew up listening
to American MCs like Nas and to rappers from South Africa and elsewhere. I had
fun as a young man just doing hip hop, but it wasn’t my only center. I was all
over the place; I would preach on the record but it never felt whole.” Zamba,
too, began to search for a different way to raise his voice.
The romantic
ties that bound Zamba and Tamar inevitably blossomed into musical
collaboration, as both found a deeper calling as artists. “This album was an
opportunity to mature and evolve and promote the things we both believe in,”
says Zamba. “We love culture, and we want to encourage international
collaboration across cultures.”
They hit
upon Swahili proverbs as conceptual anchors, bringing their broad musical loves
and diverse experiences together. “There is so much in these proverbs, some of
which I first encountered when I studied Swahili in college and in Tanzania,”
Tamar notes. “We’d talk about them, and then Zamba would find similar ideas in
Baganda culture.” “Leo ni Leo,” for example, reminds listeners that all we have
is today, but today is more than enough to find joy. “Dunia ni Matembezi”
advises listeners to leave their familiar surroundings and discover the world,
literally stating that “the world is walking,” getting out there, seeing new
things.
The
evocative proverbs were just the beginning. “After we’d thought about the
proverb, we’d come up with stories that we could tie together from our two
perspectives and experiences, and I’d develop the melody,” recalls Tamar. “We
ended up singing in English, Luganda, Lingala, and Swahili.” The linguistic
range was enhanced by the duo’s collaborators, US-based Ugandan
multi-instrumentalist Kinobe and Congolese-born soukous guitarist and singer
Jaja Bashengezi, whose musical imprint on tracks like the party-read “Sokota”
proved crucial to the album.
Nsimbi has
diverse origins but the tracks share a sonic integrity, a sunny acoustic sound
and a mesmerizing rhythmic intensity. Within the overarching feel, the
contributors’ various styles glimmer through: Tamar’s singer-songwriter
instincts (“Gonna Be Alright”), Zamba’s hip hop roots (“Flower of the Heart”),
Bashengezi’s red-hot soukous licks, and Kinobe’s expressive kora (“Forsaken,”
which addresses the plight of refugees in East Africa and worldwide). Zamba and
Tamar’s musical impulses sometimes lead to different understandings of a shared
concept, as in “Omugga,” dedicated to the swaying current of a river. Tamar
heard the pulse in one way, Zamba another. “You can watch us dancing to these
different beats on stage,” laughs Tamar. “But it all came together, even though
our sense of a river’s rhythm were so different.”
The
differences and variations are part of the point. “We have very different
approaches to writing,” reflects Tamar, “and the pace we worked at was scary,
but rewarding.” “One thing we both love and agree on, we love music that helps
society,” Zamba adds. “We don’t mean this in some corny way; it’s not a trite
thing. We honestly believe in music’s positive power in the world.”
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