Saturday, April 17, 2010

Janka Nabay

The Bubu King EP — a four-song collection that marries hyper ramshackle beats with addictive West African chants and singing — breezes past in 20 minutes. Janka Nabay, the man behind the collection, came to the States from Sierra Leone eight years ago. The sound is all his. Back in the ’90s, during the decade-long Sierra Leone Civil War, he had the idea to update ancient bubu music with synthesizers and drum machines, adding futuristic flavors to processionals traditionally played by larger groups of musicians with bamboo shoots, pipes, percussive wooden boxes, etc. As his US label True Panther explains:

Before Janka, Sierra Leoneans thought of bubu music as a relic of the past, something best left in the hills with the folk singers and witches …. Janka resuscitated and modernized bubu … This new bubu makes a point: that in the rush to modernize and escape the war, Sierra Leoneans risk abandoning their native culture.

The Civil War, initiated by the Revolutionary United Front, technically “ended” on January 18, 2002 after tens of thousands of deaths. More than one-third of the population was displaced. When Nabay left Sierra Leone, he was considered one of its biggest stars — I’m told he sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his cassettes and kids followed him through the streets. This doesn’t mean he was free from the violence: He was forced to perform his music for the Rebels, who misappropriated his songs, using them to get pumped-up for battle.

During his last night in Freetown in 2002, he recorded new songs with his “bubu boys” at Forensic Studios, a place you hear getting a shout out at the end of “Eh Congo,” which I’ve posted below. It appears on the Bubu King EP along with a few other tracks he recorded that night.

For the past nine months, Nabay worked at Crown Fried Chicken in West Philly. He actually quit last week, and has since moved to NYC, where he’s looking for work that will allow him to focus on his music.

Source: Steregoum

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