Recording "Mapenzi" with Bobby Ricketts, Barnaba & Amini

"Mapenzi" - by Bobby Ricketts, Barnaba & Amini (© 2009 Third Wave Music Entertainment) I love this track... it was true inspiration - from the story, to the music, to the melody... What you're listening to on the vid is just a rough mix, from the last bit of the solo and into the fade - done quickly while I clean up some tracks before handing the session over to engineer Henning Hansen at Bach Recording in Copenhagen. Found the inspiration for the track in Africa, wrote most of it a few months afterward while chilling at my artist cousin Eleanor's very cool home in Atlanta, between tour outings in Denmark, Africa, the US and Japan. I had a story I wanted told but also wished for vocals in Swahili... so I wrote 2 scenarios which Tanzanian vocal/songwriter whizzes Barnaba and Amini loosely translated to Swahili, and then we tracked them doing the verses as spoken word... which sounds amazing... you'll have to wait for the final mix to check that out. At one point it didn't look like the sessions in Dar Es Salaam were going to happen... My time was limited, between the Band Doctor seminars @ Tanzania House of Talent, plus performances, interviews (see the posted Dar Life interview by Amby Lusekelo), and helping produce a documentary for Third Wave Interactive. Barnaba & Amini are busy cats too, so I almost gave up hope. But thanks to Jordan Riber at MFDI Studio in Dar we were able to squeeze in a 4-hour session. I sat up most of the night and mixed a demo track we could use as a cue. It was a blast recording with the guys... they always pour their hearts out from the git-go. We had to work out some kind of hook after the spoken word section. I had forgotten to mention the title of the track, "Mapenzi" (which I'm told means 'my love'), but to my sheer joy Barnaba and Amini naturally incorporated the word into the hook based on the context of the story... magic... 4 hours later the whole tune was completed, rehearsed, recorded, dubbed and harmonized... without any TZ power cuts... we shut down, exchanged hugs and went back out into the east african heat... As always, should you feel inclined to share this vid with friends, please do so... Thanks, Bobby