root salad Diaspora
Another normal London multi-cultural French Italian Jamaican North African encounter, finds Jamie Renton.
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t was one of those “What the hell is this?” moments, when you hear a song coming out of the radio that just stops you in your tracks. The kind of moment we get with decreasing frequency as our airwaves become ever more formatted and bland. I was listening to DJ Ritu’s excellent (and tragically now axed) A World In London programme on BBC Radio London late last year, when I heard what sounded like a dub reggae band jamming in a North African souk, sharing riffs (and quite possibly spliffs) with some local musicians. Who? What? Where?
Ritu’s back announcement explained that the band was Diaspora and their album tantalisingly titled A Jamaican In Cairo was released on the Green Queen label. Subsequent research and a listen to the whole album told me that it had been created in London, masterminded by an Italian and a Frenchman and all sounded just as beguiling and otherworldly as the initial track I’d heard. But I had to wait until the New Year before I could fill in the details. By then the album had worked its way into my system and I was eager to talk to Dr Cat, aka Luca Gatti, the Italian half of the Diaspora duo.
The roots of the project go back a decade to when Luca was writing the soundtrack to a film set in southern Italy. Given that area’s proximity to North Africa he called in French oud, saz and guitar man Stephane Rene and started to explore Arabic sounds, initially in a quite tradition- al way. Once the soundtrack was out of the way they planned to develop an album, but various distractions and diver- sions later found themselves invited to act as arrangers on the 2006 Asian Dub Foun- dation / English National Opera collabora- tion Gaddafi: The Living Myth, after which they got down to working on their album in seriousness.
By now the duo had hit on the idea of combining North African instrumentation with dubwise reggae. “There’s a lot in common,” notes Dr Cat. “For example, some of the traditional fundi rhythms are very much reggae rhythms because the Africans sent it to Jamaica when they were slaves. Jah Rastafari is an African!” Not that their musical marrying of these different styles came together overnight. “The most difficult part was to find the sound that could unite all the elements,” expains Luca, who produced and engi- neered the recordings. “It’s not easy to have all of this daf and saz and then the deep basslines and vocals, but I think I cracked it eventually!”
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The album was completed and ready to go in 2008, the only problem being that they couldn’t find anyone willing to put it out! Not long afterwards Luca took on co- ownership of the Green Queen label, a Lon- don based “seedbed for all things unusual and tasty …. electronic, dub, nu world, Balkan beats and broken beats.” He got involved through his work with Italian Balkan-beaters Feel Good Productions (who are no Giovanni-Come-Latelys to the scene, having been beating away at all things Balkan for over 15 years). He was finally able to put the album out on Green Queen late last year. “It sounds as fresh as when we made it,” he reckons. “I think it’s one of those things that will last a long time.”
t was originally going to be called Reggae Arabesques, but at the last minute Luca decided to switch to A Jamaican In Cairo so as not to box it into the reggae scene. “Reggae doesn’t really sell, unless you’re doing seven inches for the DJs and anyway, it’s not really a straight reggae album.” That said, the response from the reggae community has been surprisingly positive, with (reggae DJ supreme) David Rodigan playing tracks on his Kiss FM radio show.
One of the standouts is Running For
Cover, a ‘what the hell is going on in the world today’ plea delivered by Jamaican vet Bob Andy (probably still best known for his 1970 hit Young Gifted And Black as part of the Bob and Marcia duo). He’s an old mate of Stephane’s, who married a Jamaican woman and lived out there for many years. “We needed a male voice to
Luca Gatti, a.k.a. Dr Cat, diasporadical-in-chief
sing in English. We sent him the backing track and then didn’t hear from him for about five months. Bob lives out in the countryside, he’s without mobile phone or computer… he’s old school. Then he sent the track back and we couldn’t believe what he’d done with it. It was so current!”
Another guest is French Tunisian singer Amina Annabi, fondly remembered by world music fans of a certain age as one of the hot names to drop during the glob- al music explosion of the 1980s (in spite of previously representing her country in the Eurovision Song Contest!). Luca and Stephane first hooked up with her when casting around for the Gaddafi show; they needed someone who could sing convinc- ingly in both Arabic and English and Amina fitted the bill.
London based Egyptian violinist Baheeg Ramzy Mikail also features promi- nently. Known as ‘the master of the Maqam’ (the Arabic scale system) he’s worked with many of the big shots of the Middle Eastern musical world in his time, including legends Mohammed Abdel Wahab and Om Kalthoum and his playing provides a traditional backbone to the Diaspora sound. Sadly this veteran’s health is on the decline and Luca is glad that he managed to get lots of recording done with him before this unfortunate turn. In fact Luca tells me he’s got another 20 tracks in the bag, so a second Diaspora album is a definite. “It’s going to be more traditional, back to the roots.”
www.myspace.com/diasporamusicuk F 15 f
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