Last week I promised to write about the albums that have influenced me as a musician and my upcoming EP, 'Oh David, It's A Sin'. The first one is 'Kulture Noir' by one Ms. Simphiwe Dana.
I still remember one evening in my uncle's car with two of my cousins in Alice. There was an umcimbi (which is a traditional thingy thang), and all the family had to be there. My family is huge, no one understands this because it is not normal. We have begged them to stop reproducing. It's enough now.Of course no one listens. They keep sexing it up. Tsk tsk. So, it is a need for one to lock himself away in a room or a car to compose himself.
We were in the car, listening to Simphiwe Dana. I was a teenager, still abnormally obsessed with Marvin Gaye and The O'Jays (I'm still obsessed with Marvin Gaye), and I realised after I shrieked (her voice was and still is too beautiful- it strokes emotions you want hidden away, you can't help but react strangely as this is alien ground meant for secrecy and pillow-thought and talk) and my cousins looked at me like a convulsing epileptic, that I realised I am in love with Simphiwe Dana. She released her second album (One Love Movement On Bantu Biko Street- yes, it's a mouthful) , which was also a stunner, AND THEN came 'Kulture Noir'. A friend had said to me that it was better than both her first two albums combined. I was incredulous. I got hold of it. Lo and behold, the bastard was right. From those first few seconds of 'Ndim Nawe' where she multi-tracks her vocals, singing: "aph' amaqhawe?" to the disappointing fade-out of 'Inkwenkwezi' (disappointing because it fades out too quickly. Why does it fade out so quickly Simphiwe? That's the best part of the song.Tshini!!)
What really stuck out to me was how reserved this album was. No, it is not conservative, it's not boring either, but she gets complexity through polyrythms and adding layer upon layer of instruments to achieve a lushness to the sound: handclaps, piano, those gorgeous multi-tracked vocals and hand percussion, shunning bombast.. It is the little things:the sometimes hushed, whispered backing vocals, the repetition, quite similar actually to Krautrock (even Funk and Afrobeat), where some songs stay on one level and the sounds move around what is already there, not lifting it to go anywhere else. Here is fine, and the songs know that. Simphiwe Dana knows that.
Then there is her phrasing. Yes, there is jazz there, but she keeps things interesting by drawing out her vowels, and then resolving them with a sigh or by raising those notes, in the process your stomach rises too to a place where you start to feel nervous. You have to experience this.
The comparisons to Erykah Badu are laziness by now, because come on now people. It is not at all the same music, maybe the timbre of their voices, but everything thing else? No ways.
Fela Kuti, Ali Farka Toure, Toumani Diabate('Zobuya Nini Iinkomo'), Miriam Makeba, Black Consciousness are given a few nods. A sort of salutation to the ones who started it, and passed on the baton. Does Simphiwe have competition in South Africa in her field? Maybe not, maybe Thandiswa Mazwai but she's so ahead it is frightening.Yes, I'm gushing.Indulge me. This was not supposed to be objective.
Kulture Noir is a major influence to me as a musician. Please do yourself a favour and get it. You won't be disappointed.
Nakhane
@nakhanetoure-twitter
