Always learn from the master,” said sound guru Alex Rosner in his American drawl, facing the 20-strong group of attentive students clustered on couches and cushions, before proceeding to tell the children’s fable of the emperor’s new clothes to illustrate a point. But this was no kids’ story hour. It was part of Rosner’s presentation at this year’s Red Bull Music Academy, the yearly meeting of mix masters that has for one month transformed a derelict Cape Town building off Kloof Street into a DJ school like no other.
The Red Bull Music Academy started in Berlin in 1998, with 50 DJs and producers chosen to attend two fortnightly workshops. Thereafter the operation moved to Dublin, New York, London and, last year, São Paulo in Brazil, growing in stature and name along the way.
The purpose of the academy is “to provide a platform for the exchange of musical knowledge and ideas”, say the organisers, and no one leaves with a gilded certificate or framed diploma. The treasure here is hidden not in the mysterious, locked safe left in the building by the former tenants (a Chinese seamen’s association), but in the flow of information, music and advice between the students, carefully selected from 23 countries ranging from Poland to Slovakia.
It’s no connect-the-dots course for kids messing around with second-hand decks in their bedrooms. The students are masters themselves; among them are accomplished DJs and producers. Some, like Eliana, an electro/techno DJ from São Paulo, run their own clubs. Gennaro, a bright-eyed New Yorker in love with the beauty of Table Mountain, started MCing at 14 and now, more than a decade later, confidently DJs and produces hip-hop in the Big Apple.
“This is the best one yet,” said Andy Davis, former SL editor and an academy staffer. He’s been to others, but his judgement is based strongly on this year’s venue. It’s three levels of bright, modern and sleek but functional planning, conceived by Jo’burg’s Trinity Session, with a lounge, Internet café and sandwich bar on level one, seven sound studios on level two for students to practise and produce mix tapes for the workshop, and a lounge at the top, where presentations take place.
It’s scattered with contemporary South African art: a James Webb sound installation farts in the loo; Heath Nash’s origami lampshades dress naked light bulbs. Drum magazines from the Sixties inside a glass-topped coffee table show a young Hugh Masekela and jokes by Can Themba, and the sound studios are themed with uniquely South African products: Boxer and All Gold provide local colour to global sound. From deserted building to DJ academy, this is “repurposed space”, as the accompanying art catalogue puts it. The catalogue showcases the 14 artists involved, from Webb and Nash to Kevin Brand, Paul Edmunds, Jo Ractliffe and Sam Nhlengethwa.
Apart from the main building, a neighbouring one houses a smartly equipped recording studio, where I found South African sound creator Markus Wormstorm running through beats, and a radio station, Spectrum on 91,3 FM, with a broadcast licence for the duration of the academy.
The South African influence also reached the programme, with Hugh Masekela speaking to the students on the first day, giving advice on a career in music — a talk the students found “absolutely inspiring”, as Barbara (better known as Shroombab), a softly spoken drum’n’bass DJ from Austria pointed out — and a screening of the recent film Amandla. Miriam Makeba is set to address the second batch of students who arrive in the middle of November.
The presentation programme is twofold: some sessions (about three a day) feature an industry bigwig (a DJ, sound expert, producer or the likes) who is first interviewed by a presenter, whereafter students ask questions. Experienced New York deep-house DJ and producer Darshan Jesrani, half of duo Metro Area, glibly spoke (“Didn’t I seem nervous?” he grinned afterwards) about his inspiration and ideas, why looping isn’t composition and whether bootlegs are bad, and even explained how to record hand claps. DJ Cosmo, a female DJ/producer who owns her own record label in the United Kingdom, the eclectic Bitches Brew, gave invaluable advice on the challenges women face in the dance industry, club versus radio sets, entertainment law and everything from starting one’s own label to choosing cover graphics for records.
At other times the sessions are practical, like when our own Ready D arrived and effortlessly whipped up a mad hip-hop mix from vinyl on to his PC (all very technical with too much “click here, drag this, save that” for some, but important for producers).
The students get to show off their own turntable tricks at gigs in Cape Town clubs almost every night of the week, a chance for Capetonians to sample some truly interesting sounds from abroad.
It is strange to see all this and realise its fleeting nature — after a month the academy is over, the couches are taken away and the building is empty once more. But unlike the emperor’s clothes, the results of this endeavour are clear to see for anyone: judging from the enthusiasm among the students, the academy will live on in their music.