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Somebody I knew came by to visit us, and he had some weed with him and he just sort of left it on the table. And within thirty minutes these cops showed up, and they were like, 'What's this?' We got totally squeezed.
-Ian Eagleson |
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Photo of Extra Golden in the studio
The discrepancies between life in America versus life in Africa seep into all aspects of society, music included. While the songs may be about death and betrayal, the sounds are full of life. Even the idea of being a musician is different in Africa. "Music to them is a job," says Eagleson. "Of course they really enjoy it and music is all about fun, but a lot of these guys are doing it because there's nowhere to get a job in Kenya. Playing music is not a good way to make money, but it's something. It's a way to generate some small income. But they work really hard. When they play one night, they play at least five hours, so that kind of work aspect of it makes the whole thing a lot different than what happens over here. Over here you do have bar bands that fill that role, but compared to the music scene I've been involved with, it's so different. Over here you only have to play for like forty minutes a night, and the musicianship reflects that."
Extra Golden in the studio |
There's no denying the musicianship of Extra Golden. So how did they achieve such a strong, cohesive sound with so many differences? Eagleson explains, "One thing that was really cool about it was, here we are these two guys from a rock band playing with these guys who are playing in the equivalent of a rock band over there. They've got electric guitars, a drum kit, bass, and they tune their guitars the same. Well, they tune a lot lower, but the same standard tuning. So we did have a lot in common, and when you learn benga, the first chords you learn are a C and G chord, which is the same over here. So there are a lot of similarities. But then there are also the huge differences." One of these differences is the general format American musicians use in relation to African musicians. In discussing the recording process, Eagleson explains that he and Minoff had created a few skeletons to build the tracks around. "I had all these recordings already of Onyango [drums], and we would listen to that and try to fit what we were doing into that. Otieno wasn't really sure what to sing on it, because that kind of chord progression, it's not something you would typically find on their music. They tend to work with just the three-chord format. So what we managed to do was sort of like a music theory thing. You can sing a song in a major key relative to other chords; it's sort of like a trans-position thing. So we figured out how he could sing this song comfortably with the chords we had come up with."
Then there's the issue of the lyrics. For example, what exactly is going on in the "Osama Ranch" song? "One thing I really like about benga is that they tend to talk about current events or tell stories in the songs, among other things - they also do a lot of love songs," Eagleson says. "But I had heard some songs where they were just commenting on stuff like Osama Bin Laden, how he had a big impact in Kenya because he had organized the bombing of the Embassy there. So we hear all about Osama Bin Laden all the time over here, and I just thought it would be an interesting thing for John [Otieno] to compose a song about. The idea to make it about Osama was sort of our idea, and he was responsible for all the messages there." The emotions are similar, remarkably so (who in America is not currently thinking about Osama Bin Laden?), but the reaction is different. We get Neil Young's Living With War and Green Day's American Idiot, decent showings but predictable in tone and forgettable in the end. They get "Osama Ranch," a song so uplifting and happy in tone that it's shockingly affective, without trying. And that seems to be a key factor in all of this. While the rhythms are complex and the ideas heavy, the sound is effortless, smooth, totally inclusive, and fun. Africa is different.
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