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Hera Ma Nono is the exhilarating sophomore effort from Kenyan and American cooperative Extra Golden. Kenyan benga music and American rock first met with a friendly handshake on the group’s 2006 debut, Ok-Oyot System, and are now fully integrated in a union that represents the vanguard of both styles and transcends the very notion of authenticity.
The group’s future was uncertain after the unfortunate loss of singer/guitarist/co-founder Otieno Jagwasi in 2005. However, an invitation to perform at the 2006 Chicago World Music Festival presented an intriguing opportunity for a US concert debut and a chance to return to the studio. The group called on Opiyo Bilongo to fill the void, a singer/guitarist who has been a dangerous presence on the Kenyan Benga scene for over a decade. Guitarist Ian Eagleson had helped Bilongo record two albums with his group Bilongo Golden Stars back in 2004, sessions that are highlighted on Bilongo’s debut U.S. release, What Do People Want? on Kanyo Records. Onyango Wuod Omari, whose singular drumming punctuated Ok-Oyot System, would also make the trip.
For several months and through almost interminable hassles, Eagleson and guitarist Alex Minoff worked feverishly with Onyango Jagwasi (brother of the late Otieno) to make Extra Golden’s concert debut a reality. After countless international phone calls, a great deal of hustling, and some help from people in high places (the office of Illinois Senator Barack Obama helped the group clear their final visa hurdles), Opiyo Bilongo and Onyango Wuod Omari got their visas just a few hours before their scheduled departure. This would be the first journey outside of East Africa for both benga stars.
Six weeks of memorable performances followed at both rock venues and private Kenyan functions, then Extra Golden retreated to an isolated location on Lake Wallenpaupack in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. As with Ok-Oyot System, the band recorded using their “Nyathi Otenga Flying Studio,” but the session for Hera Ma Nono couldn’t have been more different. Instead of three hours in an open-air Nairobi nightclub, the group had five days in a private house. They had access to a variety of guitar amplifiers and effects, and perhaps the biggest difference was the drumkit. The set that Onyango used on Ok-Oyot System was, to be kind, broken. In Pennsylvania, he had a fully-functional kit with a large assortment of tom-toms. These new amenities helped to take the band’s sound in a new direction.
With the loss of Otieno Jagwasi, new voices have also contributed to Extra Golden’s new sound. Bilongo, revered in Kenya for his singing and composing, penned and sang lead on “Obama”, “I Miss You” and “Love Hijackers.” Onyango Wuod Omari, while still a sought-after session drummer in Nairobi, has moved into the role of lead vocalist, and can be heard on “Night Runners” and “Hera Ma Nono.” And while he didn’t make the trip this time, Onyango Jagwasi penned the lyrics and sang lead on album-opener “Jakolando,” a tribute to his brother that takes its title from a nickname shared by both. Hera Ma Nono also features some special guests. Austin-based Dennis Rathnaw played percussion on several tracks, and David Egan, a renowned songwriter from Lafayette, Lousiana, played the piano.
Hera Ma Nono is Luo for “love in vain”, a theme that reverberates throughout the album. While on “I Miss You”, “Love Hijackers” and the title track, it refers to the love that exists between two people, this same theme applies in less traditional ways in other songs. “Jakolando” and “Brothers Gone Away” illustrate the cruelty of prematurely losing family members and friends. “Street Parade” praises the citizens and culture of New Orleans, who despite a passionate allegiance to their home are punished by its harsh ecology. In a more upbeat lyrical turn, “Obama” thanks the Senator and others who helped Extra Golden reunite to make this recording. Such songs of praise are benga custom, and in keeping with that custom, Obama’s wife and mother receive thanks too. Finally, “Night Runners” contemplates the jajuok, the creepy, nocturnal creatures of Luo folklore.
Through it all, Hera Ma Nono shows that, while the defining element of Extra Golden may be its cross-cultural cooperation, styles like Rock and Benga are not quite as disparate as some may believe. Both arose from people cranking up electric guitars and singing melodic songs over propulsive rhythms in an attempt to entertain an audience. Though they may have to cross seas and petition governments just to play a few shows, the members of Extra Golden go about their work with a few simple goals in mind: to write songs that tell stories of life, love and loss; to praise people and places that are dear to their hearts; and, most of all, to create a sound that people of different backgrounds and generations can enjoy.
Extra Golden is an international collaboration between members of two bands: Otieno Jagwasi and Onyango Wuod Omari of the Nairobi, Kenya based benga band Orchestra Extra Solar Africa, and Ian Eagleson and Alex Minoff of the Washington D.C. based rock band Golden. Alex Minoff also plays with Drag City band, Weird War. The musicians met as a result of Ians doctoral research on Kenyan music.
Since 2000, Otieno had been assisting Ian in documenting benga, a guitar-heavy kind of dance music (similar to Congolese rumba) that has been popular in Kenya since the 1960s. Otieno comes from Gwasi district in western Kenya. His rural home is in the middle of an area that has been a hotbed of musical activity for the specific type of benga played by the Luo people, a community based around the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenyas Nyanza Province.
Throughout the 1990s Otieno worked as a guitar soloist and vocalist in two bands: Central K, a Nyanza based band that broke off of the Shirati Jazz Band of Owino Misiani; and Orchestra Solar Africa, a Nairobi based group. By the time he met Ian in 2000 he had established his own band, Extra Solar Africa based in Nairobis Dandora estate, a poor neigborhood that has been home to many great benga bands. This group included Onyango Wuod Omari on drums. Onyango, the son of benga guitarist Omari Nyakwar Duka, is a highly requested session drummer in Nairobi.
Moving ahead to 2004, Ian had come to Kenya for a year-long visit to do research for his doctoral thesis on benga, and again was working closely with Otieno. This time, they had a portable laptop studio at their disposal, and did several recordings of Otienos latest band, Orchestra Hit Sounds International, as well as many other groups that Otieno helped arrange. This recording project, known as Nyathi Otenga Flying Studio was usually carried out during the day at various nightclubs in the eastern section of Nairobi and in Nyanza Province, where benga groups have their headquarters.
Alex and Ian had already planned on meeting up in Kenya to do some recordings. Golden has been on hiatus since 2003, so this offered them a unique opportunity to explore some of the benga-inspired ideas that had been present in some of Goldens music. So, in April of 2004, following a UK tour with his other group, Weird War, Alex visited Nairobi, and Extra Golden came to be.
Going into the recording, no one really had a set idea of how to compose songs that would work for this type of situation: a benga/rock crossover. But, as time was short, they quickly came up with a strategytaking some bits and pieces that Ian and Alex had been working on, rearranging them to fit into a benga beat, and then working in Otienos vocal melodies. In one case, Otieno took the melody and lyrics from his recent composition Ilando Gima Onge (which had been well received on Kenyas Luo language broadcasting, Ramogi FM) and made them work perfectly in the minor key chord progressions that had been developed during the session. Other tunes like Osama Rach and Ok-Oyot System were put together in the studio as an integrated effort. The session also produced three songs which represented the musicians working in their respective styles: Nyajondere, a song composed by Otieno in praise of his ex-wife that typifies the style of Extra Solar Africa; and Its Not Easy as well as Tussin and Fightin, both rock tunes that had been worked on by Alex and Ian before, but that took on new shape and meaning in the context of this particular session at Nyathi Otenga Flying Studio. Most of the record was recorded in one afternoon at the Annex Club, a small, crudely constructed nightclub in Nairobis Kariobangi South estate. At the time of recording, Otienos band Hit Sounds International had taken up an extended residence there performing Wednesdays through Sundays.
The title of the record Ok-Oyot System, is derived from the Luo phrase ok oyot, which means its not easy. Singers in Luo benga bands often use this phrase as an exclamation in their performance, drawing attention to the idea that life can be painful. Life in Kenya for the most part is not easy, a sentiment that is expressed in many of the Luo lyrics that Otieno sang on this record, as well as in the English lyrics sung by Alex and Ian.
Many difficult situations faced Extra Golden before, during, and after this recording was made: Otieno had sufferred from kidney and liver disease since 2000, which was further complicated by H.I.V. In the year following the session, his condition deteriorated, and he would later sucumb to liver failure, passing away in May of 2005. During the recording, Ian, Alex, Otieno, and another dude called Fozzy were involved in a costly run in with the Kenyan police, in which a few detectives from Kenyas much feared Criminal Investigation Department swept in to Ians apartment and found some sticks of bhangi, the local kynd. To stay out of jail and finish the session the Extra Golden boys had to empty some bank accounts (their own). Fortunately, these struggles did not stop these musicians from completing this record.
The result is a unique sounding record that arose from the cooperation between musicians that come from different circumstances, but who, at the same time, have something in common: they play in electric guitar bands and perform in bars and nightclubs. They are also musicians who have worked hard to release their own music over the past 15 years, often to little recognition. Extra Golden is not a high-profile international collaboration of the sort that would be featured at Starbucks checkout counters. Rather, it is based on a deep connection between the musicians, and, as a result, has a very honest sound reflecting this experience.
