A few years ago you could have counted SA’s independent music producers on one hand. Today, reports GLYNIS O’HARA, the industry is booming
THEIR products are legendary, the stuff of teenage dreams and, sometimes, adult enjoyment, yet few people outside the music industry would know the names of producers Thapelo Khomo and Don Laka. Youngsters, however, would have no trouble identifying Joe Nina and Arthur, producers in their 20s who are also artists in their own right.
They are just four of the hot independent or semi-independent producers around at the moment. Sizwe Zakho, producer of Rebecca, probably the country’s biggest selling star last year, is another. And, of course, there’s Chicco, a producer who created his own sound in the late 1980s as well as being a huge star in his own right. He’s busy with his own label, Cultural African Records now, and recording new acts like New Age Kids.
Khomo and Laka have been partly responsible for huge hits from Bayete and Boom Shaka, to name but two. Nina produced Brenda’s multi- platinum Abantu Bayakhuluma and has had hits under his own name, like Ding Dong and Joy, and Arthur, well, Arthur made his name with Kaffir (as in “don’t call me kaffir”), and is still raking it in with Die Poppe Sal Dans, with over 50 000 sales.
He’s the only representative of the younger dance-floor generation to have reached double platinum sales last year, with Kaffir. (The other two were Rebecca and, um, Leon Schuster.)
Arthur’s a producer in the time-honoured South African sense – a man who goes out there to find the talent and form the acts, as well as record, promote and sell them. Indeed, the dual function of talent scout and producer has been there for a long time. But they always worked for a particular company. Nowadays, there’s a trend towards independence, as in so many areas of the workplace.
Nina and Arthur are typical of the go- getting younger generation of producers – people who know that all it takes to make music is a synthesister and the skill to use it. This has revolutionised pop music throughout the world, making for kitchen/home studio recordings everywhere.
Indeed, for some the fact that “anyone” can now make a recording is the core problem with pop music, because real musical gifts and skill are somewhat rarer than that. But for others, it’s precisely what makes music democratic and fun. Either way, it certainly keeps the dance floors busy.
There are hundreds of private studios in South Africa, besides the big record company and state broadcaster studios, says Dave Alexander of Tequila Records. “Most of them do jingles and voice-overs but every musician wants to produce as well eventually and most aim to get their own studio together.” If an artist/producer doesn’t have his own studio, but he does have a commission, he’ll hire one. “They’re likely to go back to places where the hits are produced and where there’re happy faces and a good vibe. Ian Osrin’s Digital Cupboard is a good example. Thapelo Khomo works there,” says Alexander.
For Arthur, kwaito music’s the thing. It’s “house” music with iseqamtho lyrics, current street slang. Called the “king of kwaito” in townships, he says he doesn’t know who invented it; “but I made it popular”.
He’s not totally independent, because his contract with EMI limits him to either producing for them or for his own label, Triple 9 Music – but excludes working for other record companies.
He has his own two studios, two production companies, a record company and seven acts at the age of “twentysomething”. “My goal was always to be as successful as I can get so I can help people with little or no opportunity to get on in this business. These groups wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me. I put them together, out of people I knew, who came to the studio and who I found out there… I set out to be a producer, it was my dream.”
Joe Nina, 23, learnt to play keyboards and drums from his father, Solomon Xaba, a multi-instrumentalist in jazz. His first album, by LA Beat, Boss Of The Road, went platinum. (Gold equals 25 000 sales, platinum equals 50 000.) “LA Beat was just a concept, it was really all me.”
In 1993 he joined Om Alec Khaoli’s studios and did his first album under his own name, One Time One Vibe. That’s where Brenda Fassie first heard him and asked him to produce for her. He was 19.
Then he did two of his biggest albums, Ding Dong and Joy, the latter at Derek Lategan’s Cube Studios. He’s also done the soundtrack to a British movie, Jump The Gun, directed by Les Blair, to be released here in February.
Now he works in Braamfontein in partnership with Ray Phiri in Groove House Studios, which cost “close to a million”. Always a freelancer, he’s never been a record company employee. They employ an engineer, are training two more and will soon need a receptionist, “so you see, we’re part of the RDP”.
Laka has produced Boom Shaka, Sharon Dee, Mango Groove, Ymage, Umoja. Turning 38 this month, he has moved from a Yeoville flat to a plot outside Johannesburg with his own studio. It’d be hard to find a more enthusiastic, motivated music man.
“I wanted to be a conductor when I was small, but since I couldn’t fulfil that dream, production is the next best thing. I studied in the 1970s, taking myself through the Royal College of London correspondence music courses, and I obtained my licentiate in classical piano and theory of music in 1978.
He recorded his first gold disc with Sakhile in 1980, when they were playing at Le Chain in Hillbrow, one of the best clubs Jo’burg has seen. Both Sakhile and Malopoets came to prominence in that venue, a tiny hole in the wall in a Hillbrow alley that was also a hole in the wall of apartheid.
“Then I joined Umoja with Alec Khaoli and my first composition, Oneness, went gold. I left to form Ymage with Chicco and we had a double platinum with an album called Chicco, which gave him his name.”
And then there was a long gap. “I’m fortunate actually. I’ve come around a second time … I left the country in 1990 and played in England and Europe.
“When I came back, I wanted a record deal and no-one would sign me, so I decided to do it on my own. The whole idea was to do teenage music.”
He linked up with Oscar, now notorious for sexually explicit lyrics, as an act in his own right and formed a record company called Kalawa. “We recorded and produced groups like Brothers Of Peace, Boom Shaka, Thebe and Trompies, which went gold last year with Sigiya Ngengoma.”
Boom Shaka did platinum on their eponymous first album. Their follow-up, Thobela, went platinum in three weeks, he says.
Laka has just produced an album of his own work, Destiny, between black and white radio programming.
Thapelo Khomo won the best producer and best album FNB/Sama awards for 1994 and 1995, as well as song of the year twice for Mmalo-we and Umkhaya-Lo, for his work with Bayete. He’s also produced and co-produced acts like Kamazu, ImiLonji XaNtu, Lucky Dube and Tu Nokwe.
Born in 1964 into a musical family who used to sing hymns late at night before going to bed, he started playing keyboards around 1973. “I joined a band at 11, a backyard band called The Mad Dogs.” At the end of 1984, he went to Europe and joined Malopoets in France and toured with them to the US and England, before coming back home and joining Stimela at the end of 1985.
“Around 1989 I started becoming more independent. But between 1991 and 1993 things were bad: the whole industry was going down financially and I couldn’t get work. I did piece jobs until 1993 when life started again, when Siyaya, with Stimela, did well. We sold over 40 000.”
At the same time, his connection to Bayete started up, with him as producer and song- writer. “I was working as an independent freelancer for Teal. They knew I was hot and believed I had the music.”
And that, after all, is what it’s all about.