Incognito must always evolve into something fresh and exciting,” founder Jean-Paul “Bluey” Maunick once said. So what stage is the evolution at? “There is no preconceived end to the process,” he told the Mail & Guardian from London last week. “It is just that for too many bands, their music does not reflect what is happening in their lives at the time.”
Maunick’s belief that an album is a soundtrack of your life is reflected in two love songs written eight years apart. Spellbound and Speechless from 100 Degrees and Rising (1995) and Can’t Get You Out of My Head from last year’s Who Needs Love are actually about the same woman.
The former describes the experience of falling in love with the mystery girl while the latter talks about how, at the end of the relationship, she still has a compelling presence.
Maunick believes the concept of Incognito took shape in his head as a boy growing up in Mauritius. It developed further when, at the age of 10, he moved to London and received his musical education in the 1970s. Incognito first assembled in 1981 with the release of Jazz Funk.
The sound got lost in the 1980s punk scene and cheesy disco, and it was to be a decade before the world was to witness its current, highly successful incarnation.
Between 1991’s Inside Life and Who Needs Love, Incognito have a total of 13 releases — including eight studio albums — that have cemented them alongside Soul II Soul, The Brand New Heavies and Drizabone as icons of funk. Incognito is characterised by a revolving-door policy of band members and osmosis of shared ideas. The 1999 album No Time Like the Future was recorded over two years as band members toured with other acts. Maunick describes the album as “miraculous”.
For their last it took six weeks, but there was room for spontaneity. During recording Ed Motta came to introduce himself without realising that Maunick knew of him. An acquaintance blossomed over dinner and Motta was featured on vocals in the title track Who Needs Love. Maunick has recently featured on Motta’s album “without any exchange of cash”, he says proudly.
On Incognito’s new album there are seven vocalists, with the longest-serving member being Richard Bailey, a drummer Maunick has admired since he was a teenager, when Bailey was playing with the likes of Bob Marley.
In 1997 Incognito took the extraordinary step of breaking into Japan. The band’s reception in Tokyo has been so successful that they recorded a live album, a remix album and tracks exclusively for that territory on many of their releases since. Maunick has also found love there and now plans to spend his time between Osaka and London.
Influences on Maunick’s music range from Chaka Khan, Earth, Wind and Fire, Herbie Hancock and Stevie Wonder through peers Marcus Miller, D’Angelo and the most funk-orientated producer of his generation, Raphael Sadiq of Toni Tony Tone and Lucy Pearl.
Maunick’s connection with South Africa runs deep. His father Eduardo Maunick, a French-based poet and writer, used his work to draw attention to apartheid evils and has long embraced Nelson Mandela. After 1994 he took up a diplomatic posting in the country.
Now the son is here to give us nights over Jo’burg and Durban — to reference that other great Incognito number, Nights Over Egypt.
The details
Incognito will perform at the Newtown Music Hall (Former Mega Music) in Johannesburg on Friday October 31 at 8pm (Tickets are R150); and at the International Convention Centre in Durban on Thursday October 30 (Tickets are R120).Bookings are available
through Computicket: Tel: (011) 340 8000/083 915 8000.