AN AFRICAN INFLUENT

Writer vis-a-vis multi instrumentalist

I am a father, grandfather, brother, cousin, nephew, uncle, friend, and husband. I consider all that to be a blessing. I also appreciate warm relations with other professionals and fellow artists across the planet. Since teenage years, I have been trying to live according to four principles:

i) Living healthy by following and respecting nature.

ii) Being passionate about art and creativity, aiming to contribute something useful to the arts and using art to better our universe.

iii) Loving my community both as a participant and an outsider.

iv) Being a devout Pan-Africanist and internationalist.

I would like to acknowledge that I’m diverse. I’m a writer as well as a multi-instrumentalist.

ON BEING A MULTI INSTRUMENTALIST; Ancestral roots made me what I am. I was born into a family of several multi-talented individuals and an amazing paternal grandfather, Abraham Macha, who was both an army commander and traveler with brilliant leadership skills. He was in the then “cabinet” of the Mangi or local chief, with an extremely large family, with at least 52 kids! His son, the legendary preacher Anaeli Macha, spoke several languages

including German, he played the accordion and the first time I saw a piano was at his house. He was also a popular radio broadcaster and wrote a lot. One of his Swahili books on etiquette and good behaviour was published when he was in his 70s. Reverend Anaeli Macha was a good role model to us in the family, and his funeral in 1991 attracted at least a 1 000 mourners. My father was a medical doctor and a musician. He and my mother both sang and played guitars. They recorded several singles in the mid 1950s. My maternal great-granddad, Yohane Kimambo, was renowned for his spiritual, gentle and persuasive leadership skills. Several of my maternal uncles played guitars and sang as well. I grew up in Kilimanjaro, a lush region renowned for very hardworking people who lived to be 95. That is my background and foundation.

Over the years I have used several instruments to express different ideas and feelings. I find that instruments are similar to motor vehicles. They are all the same. It depends on whether you want to transport goods (lorry/truck), chill (Mercedes Benz) or speed like a motorbike.

BALANCING BEING A WRITER AND A MUSICIAN; My passions are genetic because I come from a multi talented family. As an artist, I find there are various ways to express oneself. Most well known artists had several vocations. Bob Marley played soccer and guitars. Miles Davis did boxing and painted apart from playing the trumpet and piano. The founder of Tanzania, Mwalimu Nyerere loved literature as well as politics. He translated two William Shakespeare books into Kiswahili.

I view media as the most thoughtful instrument or asset in the universe. It keeps us in touch with the world. I love percussion for certain types of spoken word material. It is always about the mood and thoughts. Therefore, I use certain sounds to convey an idea or message. If you listen to my album Constipation from the year 2000, you can see a wide range of this portfolio. When I speak of an Andrea shooting her parents in Brazil (based on a true story), I used the Berimbau. Berimbau is a Brazilian martial arts instrument. So that makes sense speaking of moods and tones. Music is about atmosphere, tone and feeling. As a multi instrumentalist, I have played behind people and led my own bands. I try being sensitive through instrumentation. I started working professionally as a multi-instrumentalist musician and spoken word artist with Sayari Performing Group, in Tanzania. We used various languages, instruments and forms to express ideas and emotions. Some of the forms included dance and drama (theatre). See? All that is part of my journey.

HOW MANY YEARS HAVE I DONE ART? I started writing and playing the guitar at the age of 14. My dad encouraged me a lot and taught me the basics. My maternal uncle, Harry, bought me a guitar when I passed my O levels, excellently. I have had guitars, ever since. At Mzumbe High school I joined the school band, Earthquakes. My writing kicked off with notoriety while still in secondary school. I was in a group of youth friends who loved music, fun and fashion. We were called The Gringos and were locally known around the northern region town of Arusha. This attracted "little" troubles. One of us got into a spat with a girlfriend and she wrote him a spiteful letter. It upset him. A meeting was made and I was assigned to write two long letters, one in Swahili another in English. The results were catastrophic. The girls were incensed. They hired a gang of ex-cons and army veterans. We got properly beaten up. Some of us stayed in school hospital beds for at least a week. I was 15 and that is when I started to recognise the power of my writing.

When I was in school I contributed articles to school magazines and national newspapers. Before graduating, an editor of the biggest Swahili newspaper in the country told one of my teachers to join them as soon as I finished school. That is how I became a trainee reporter. By the time I was 21, I was producing three columns per week plus daily news reporting and features.

My journey of writing poetry started when I was 14 or 15 years old, mostly directed to my then girlfriend. Around this time, I became a ghost-writer for some of my classmates. They would tell me what they wanted to tell their girlfriends and I would rephrase it and write romantic love letters. Since demand was high, I started charging money and that boosted my initial respect for commercial writing. As you can see initially, my poetry developed through love letters and romance. At the age of 26, I entered three poems into the 1981 contest which was held by the British Council in Dar es Salaam and won. One of the poems was about love and loss after breaking up with a girlfriend. The other poem Corruption was about local politics. She is Everything was for my then love interest. The win uplifted my spirits especially because the poems were to be included in the African Collection (Summer Fires, Heineman publishers, 1983, London) and edited by outstanding authors: Jack Mapanje (Malawi), Cosmo Pieterse (South Africa) and Angus Calder (Scotland). It was very inspiring.

The 1996 trophy was for the Commonwealth countries contest. I have always found short story writing to be an extension of my journalism. My winning story ‘When I Killed a Snake,’ was based on a true incident. A foreign lady had grappled with me when I was about to kill a snake that was about to hurt chickens. She wanted to take pictures. She said the reptile was really beautiful. That was a cultural conflict. Journalistic approach has really re-inforced my music writing, prose, and poetry.

Like earlier said, I’m a bit diverse and it’s all because I do what I love. All I can attest to, is that, the influential side of me, is because I tend to spread my wings. This began, as I said earlier, through journalism. On some occasions editors were not keen to publish my work. I would change my writing into a song, story, or poem. For example I am presently working on a Swahili novel, Baada ya Foleni, which originates from a true tale I witnessed in 1980. It was a very stormy raining night and I saw a child running behind her mum carrying a heavy load. The mother was scolding her to hurry up. The image was so poignant, eerie, sad, and strong. Magazines and newspapers refused to publish the story. Therefore, I included the story in my second Swahili collection, Mpe Maneno Yake, still (and but) was not used. Now it is going to become part of an even greater story, the novel. That is how I always work. Once I wrote about a driver that had knocked a cat dead and sent the story to magazine and newspaper publishers, but they did not want it. Therefore, I fused the tale with another black cat story and made a song Paka Mweusi. My tune is one of the most loved especially by Swahili speakers. These are few examples of how I don't waste any materials.

The other side of things is that I have spread myself into broadcasting. I have blogs and a Swahili YouTube channel: Kwa Simu Toka London (Images from a phone in London). The channel is getting popular everyday and covers all sorts of issues like how erectile dysfunction, affects the youth. The few programs I made have resonated well in East and Central Africa.

I have published story collections, recorded several albums and been a front man for bands. My two Swahili collections are Twen'zetu Ulaya (Lets go overseas) and Mpe Maneno Yake (Hurl Words at Them) are humorous satirical collections. Twen'zetu Ulaya is specifically about how and why African youth want to migrate. There are love and money narratives and issues about freedom and being an African after independence. The collection was initially, published by GAP (Grand Arts Promotions) in Dar es Salaam in 1984. I recently finished re-editing a republication. Mpe Maneno Yake came out in 2006. It was produced by the respected E & D Limited (Dar es Salaam) who publishes serious social work publications. Some of the stories have been translated into Spanish and English. Due to public demand I am finishing the sequel to Mpe Maneno Yake, Insh'Allah which will be even funnier than the first.

AVAILABILITY? I have just been in contact with a new breed of book promoters who use online promotions, known as Elite Publishers. On Tanzania Day in July, they had a massive display of Tanzanian books, old and new. They are slowly turning into a breath of fresh air for Tanzanian and Swahili writing.

As for my Constipation album, it is available online. Just Google, Freddy Macha Constipation and it should come up. Constipation was released in London in 2000. It is a combination of prose, poetry, and music. The previous album Kitoto was done in Brazil and released in Canada in 1996. I am also working on its online release. In 2001 I released a single called Kilimanjaro which can be found online and on YouTube. Its an up tempo Afro-beat dancing song. I was born on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and the tune is about that and how the famous mountain is being affected by global warming.

I used to be part of Sayari the Tanzanian collective of spoken word and music. We toured Scandinavian countries in 1984 and had a wonderful time. Sayari was a learning curve for me and as a co-founder, it has defined how I do my work as an artist. Then I lived in Germany and had my touring trio. I worked well with the South African author and musician, Ian Wiltshire and percussionist, Claudia Wende. We played at many places in Germany, especially Hamburg and Cologne, during the mid-80s.

In the late 80s and early 90s, I was part of the Os Galas which was a fusion band in Brazil. It gave me the opportunity to work with young, energetic, and knowledgeable Brazilian musicians. That experience of four nights a week in a club in Rio de Janeiro was a preparation for my Kitoto Band. I formed the Kitoto Band in 1991 and is still present. Kitoto Band is inspired by fusion rhythms and is a south Tanzanian rhythm. Kitoto also defined my working style: mixed gender, multiethnic, talented musicians. It was made up of band leaders so the quality of work was quite high. During the mid-2000, Kitoto evolved into a party and weddings band. Some of the work done by the band can be seen on social media especially YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. Kilimanjaro and the Portuguese song, Te Amando are examples of Kitoto Band music.

I am inspired by Osibisa, Santana, Miles Davis, Bob Marley, James Brown, Fela Kuti and Sunburst. But the most dedication goes to Sunburst, a Tanzanian band that I grew up dancing to in the early 1970s. The song Kitoto is dedicated to the founder of Sunburst, the late James Mpungo, a gifted musician who loved Afrobeat and roots music.

I’ve been able to write articles and I can say, I am motivated by the duty of an artist towards his society. I have been writing weekly columns since I was 21, nonstop. The pieces Boy in a hurry brings back childhood memories, Hero to Zero, The fall of Foris Becker and Two faces of relationships in this apart of the globe are a few from recent weekly columns of the Tanzanian Citizen, on Fridays. I also write Swahili articles in Mwananchi on Sundays, since 2002. These are an extension of my storytelling. My eyes sees “magic” and food, in every detail I go through. I also try to make people more sensitive and caring. My columns also give an insight to what an immigrant sees and experiences in developed societies and what lessons can be drawn from them. For example, a lot of young Africans think life in Europe is all roses and gold and that money falls from skies and tree buds. But life is tough overseas, that is partly the lesson behind these writings. As a writer I have to remind and re-inform, what we sometimes think we know or have seen.

To add to everything, I had ideas of running workshops or live seminars. They are by principle, a livelihood for any professional. And as everyone knows, teaching is a skill. Knowing something does not mean that one can teach it well. I host all kinds of workshops and some are for the general public. In the past 10 or more years, I have been running them when I am in East Africa for example, whole day workshops for at least 3 days in various regions and towns. The workshops focus

on a variety of subjects: music, writing, health, etc. Health living lifestyle is my personal passion. I have always worked out and did yoga since I was 22, twice a day. The stretching and breathing exercises are quite important to keep the body and spirit balanced. The impact of these workshops on people extends beyond the sessions. As for schools and community centres, the subjects are based on my skills as

a performing artist, for example music instruments, vocals, dance, creative writing, etc. I have done them throughout my professional life for at least 40 years. Jails are interesting. I have done mostly creative stuff and worked in joint projects to improve minds and psyches of offenders in jail, for example assisting in hip hop materials and delivery for young offenders. Out of ten individuals in attendance, one or two always benefit.

I have been fortunate enough to contribute to the London-based Informer East Africa. I can say it’s the most robust online East African newspaper, overseas. I have been contributing to it since 2015. The paper has writers from across the East African region, including Rwanda and Burundi. I write features mostly about Tanzania with pictures. It is a true platform of keeping us united.

In the near future, I long to seeing people loving and appreciating my work and reacting to it. I hope to see the work enriching lives of people and Mother earth, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

To be visible to the world, I try to use most of the social medias. My favorites are of course WhatsApp (with most group chats and fellow professionals), Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. I have recently kicked off my TikTok account. For 15 years I have blogged and try to continue blogging.

To fellow artists, I would love to advise them to be themselves. They should believe in what they do and do things because they love them not for external reasons. If I did literature and music for money and fame, I would have been very depressed. Things are not easy in this sector of life. But I do what I love. It makes me breath and live. Through this love I have met very interesting people and travelled in many countries. That is my wealth.

Interviewed by: Martin Chivaku @DA_Scripta

chivakum@gmail.com +26371877747