Nigerian singer Asa’s travels between the old and the new worlds have elements of a grand narrative. She was born in Paris, the intellectual capital of the West; at the age of two her parents moved back to Lagos — perhaps Africa’s most vibrant and creative city.
In her 20s the vocalist moved back to France and released the self-titled Asa in 2007, which won best album at France’s prestigious Prix Constantin last year.
On May 23 she will perform in Johannesburg at the annual Africa Day celebrations. The day commemorates the founding of the Organisation of African Unity, the precursor to the African Union. Ironically it was launched in 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — a country that had not considered itself African until the Italian invasion of the 1930s.
Asa comes to Johannesburg exactly a year after South Africa marked Africa Day in the most horrendous way: about 60 foreigners were killed in an orgy of xenophobic violence. She’s aware of this and hopes her visit “will help enlighten open the minds, and help people see others in a different light. I always talk about peace, hope, joy and laughter,” she said on the phone from Nigeria.
Asa was born Bukola Elemide, but her family called her Asa (hawk in Yoruba) because she was “very fast”. Whenever she accompanied her mother to the market place she was easily distracted, the kind of child who gets lost — a scary prospect in a country of more than 120-million people.
She now spends most of the year in Paris. “I come home every now and then to rest. Paris is my base. It’s much easier to work from there,” she said.
Although influenced by European trends Asa’s sound and message remains fastidiously African: “It’s my roots, my beginning and my morality.” Her take on the continent is, arguably, gentler than that of her most famous compatriot, the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Where his is an angry and percussive attack on power, Asa’s music offers a gentler, feminine persuasion. (Last year she collaborated with Kuti’s former drummer, the Paris-based Tony Allen.)
Her music is — in a tautological manner of speaking — adulterated fusion, which combines funk, jazz, reggae, pop and soul. She has a slightly accented voice and sounds — especially on her slower tracks — like a mix between Tracy Chapman and Angelique Kidjo. Analogies are lame, they obscure more than they reveal. Those who saw her at last year’s Standard Bank Joy of Jazz commented that she has a unique, commanding and captivating presence. Her polemical song Fire on the Mountain has entered the canon of African pop standards and it is likely that it will be recorded by plenty of other musicians, both good and bad.
Asa’s mongrel musical identity comes from the music she soaked in as she grew up. “My father had a rich collection of Afro-beat, jazz, reggae and other genres,” she said. She “drew ideas” from this music but didn’t want her music to be a “beast of no nation”.
“I wanted it to come from somewhere. I wanted to be myself, but I also wanted to stay in touch with my culture.” Yet it’s clear her idea of culture is outward, not inward looking. “I know what’s happening outside,” she said.
The slightly foreign feel of her music was arrived at by a cumulative process of identity. “I am Yoruba, the Yoruba are Nigerian and Nigeria is part of Africa,” she said in a feel-good, poetic accent.
An African identity is, at best, a complex construct that has long eluded the continent’s politicians. One is never sure whether this Africa is the one conceived by colonialists in Berlin in 1884; or the continent lorded over by power-crazed, postcolonial despots; or the one in the minds of the revellers at Newtown’s Mary Fitzgerald square when they dance on Africa Day.
Mann Friday: Living it up in Harare North
One of the many bands trying to break into the UK’s busy music scene is the Zimbabwean/South African indie rock group Mann Friday. Having just returned from a short tour of South Africa to promote their new album, Waiting for the flash, they spend their time performing on the London circuit, paying their dues and looking for a distribution deal that will take them to the big-time.
They have had a few successes along the way, and most recently performed in the BBC’s Immigrant Song Contest, a battle of the bands, against groups from Afghanistan to Poland, playing Eurovision hits from the past. Lead guitarist Justin Cocks from East London alludes to the fact that if they had known a bit more about the context they might have thought twice about participating, because they don’t want to be considered a world music outfit. Still, it got them some valuable television exposure, playing a good cover version of Abba’s hit Waterloo.
Mann Friday are not an overtly political band, even if they do have one protest song about the situation in Zimbabwe, Fifteen Minutes of shame. This looks at how the media coverage has moved to the back page after a flurry of interest. Zimbabwe will always be home to lead singer Rob Burrell who says he wants to return one day to raise a large family and refers to the country as “paradise found and lost”.
But Mann Friday won’t return until they’ve made it and become a household name in the UK and this may still be a distant dream. In terms of the UK scene “it’s really dog eat dog, when it comes to some of the musicians you play with. Ja, you come up against some of the best in the world. That was part of our reason to come in the first place,” says Cocks.
Probably the last South African to have a UK number one, and an even more illusive US chart success, was their namesake Manfred Mann — almost fifty years ago. “I didn’t even know he was South African,” admits Justin. Still, he thinks that they are no longer just playing to audiences of expat Southern Africans, unlike the vast majority of South African bands who perform in London. And until they’re famous enough to base themselves back in the Eastern Cape and Zimbabwe, those guys from Mann Friday will keep following that dream in England. — Jeremy Kuper 2009
Asa will perform on May 23 beside Senegalese hip-hop artist Awadi, Benin’s Gang’be, Gang of Instrumentals, Soweto Gospel Choir, The Parlotones and Angolan Yuri da Cunha. Show starts at 3pm