Pops Mohamed sighs and gazes into the middle distance in between his sentences, as if to imply that talking about his music is, as Frank Zappa once put it, as risky as “dancing about architecture”.
He seems in a reticent mood as he gingerly guides me through his musical past. Having a morning snack at a fast-food restaurant near his Jo’burg home, he wears a pair of black jeans and a black nylon sports jacket. Mohamed is appearing alongside the Swedish headliner, Andreas Vollenweider, at this year’s Joy of Jazz Festival, South Africa’s last major jazz gathering of the year.
Chopping away at French toast and a piece of tomato that he washes down with a cup of coffee, he tells me he is “looking for a specific sound in my head”. Mohamed says he “follows that sound because a lot of people who listen to my music are used to it”. Mohamed has one of the most distinctive sounds in the world.
In 1995 the pursuit of those sounds led him to the heart of the Kalahari desert in search of the music of the Khoisan. He had joined Melt 2000 — a British record label — having just released his first solo album with them, titled Ancestral Healing.
The label asked him to put together another Pops Mohamed album, not as part of Kalamazoo or Society Vibes, the two series he put out with the late bassist Sipho Gumede and saxophonist McCoy Mrubatha, respectively. He says he told Melt 2000: “Okay, let’s go to the desert. I want to work with the Khoisan.”
The result was the 1997 release How Far Have We Come? The album blends modern technology with traditional Khoisan musical sensibilities and instruments. It is perhaps the one album that has affected his creative concerns the most, because since that project he has been producing what can be described as post-tribal and neo-ethnic South African music. It has given him a public image as a crusading figure with a laptop in one hand and an mbira — a Zimbabwean thumb piano — in the other.
The Dorkay House alumnus is a classically trained virtuoso guitarist. He has also become comfortable with an mbira, the West African harp known as the kora and the African mouth bow, including a variety of other indigenous instruments. “I don’t box music,” he tells me as he chews on a piece of dry bread. He says: “If you can easily define your music, it means you are copying someone else, because you just choose from existing sounds” — such as the jazz and house he has worked on.
Mohamed’s 2000 drum ‘n bass project, called Pops Mohamed Meets the London Collective, also fused the indigenous past with modern sonic appeal. In 2005 the man known for his hardcore penchant for everything ethnic released a house music album, titled The Fucha Rist.
He says doing that dance album “wasn’t about commercialising his music”. He was “trying to see how he could bring traditional instruments to the dance floor and to young people”. He says the album “opened up doors” and made possible collaborations with club DJs, such as Christos, Revolution and others, here and in the United Kingdom.
Mohammed says watching the Khoisan play their instruments showed him how music can heal. “It’s about communicating with ancestors,” he says. Some of their songs were “composed by their forefathers, who called down rain with music during droughts”. He testifies to witnessing the musicians “attracting spirits of ancient healers with their favourite songs. That’s what it’s about!” he says.
But his jubilant phrases do not mask his apparent need for sleep. “It’s hectic, man! Look, I’ve got red eyes.”
There’s no time for rest. Mohamed is hard at work finishing a new album in the Society Vibes series, titled Fast Forward. It features the rap star Zubs, Ntsiki Mazwai and Setswana poetry by Lesego Motsepe, recognised for her role as Lettie Matabane in Isidingo.
Mohamed has just returned from a tour of Belgium and is already heavily engaged with rehearsals for Joy of Jazz. He is working with Vuyo Tshuma and Vus’umuzi Nhlapo of Africapella, a vocal project that will join Andreas Vollenweider for a project titled Breath Orchestra.
Mohamed regards the musical relationship as familial. He says Vollenweider “thinks of me as the South African element of his band”.
Pops Mohamed appears with Andreas Vollenweider on the Mbira Stage at the 2009 Standard Bank Joy of Jazz Festival in Johannesburg on August 28 at 11pm and on August 29 at 11.15pm. Tickets are available from Computicket at R280 a night, standing room only (unreserved)