Guest Article by Senté
I think it’s always helpful to start with a question. Here I am writing another one of these things at 2:38AM after an eventful day at work. I’m staying the night at my friend’s apartment on the other side of town because I had a studio session with The Culturing’s very own Philosopher-in-Chief, Joe Watema, that ran so late that my friend was asleep when I got here (lmaooo).
Superstar producer WANA Benjamin played host to a guitarist, two singer/songwriters with very different musical histories/backgrounds, and a whole lot of philosophical conversation (or should I say debate? Lol) at East African Records on Monday. One of these musicians (perhaps the one narrating this story ☻) had just come off the back of a performance at Lugogo where he opened for Nigeria’s Qing Madi with a few of his other artist friends.
He was brought onto the docket as a surprise guest but his turn as the headliner was to come the next weekend – at the Xpressions UG Rhythm & Bars Show (tickets linked here @ mookh.com) set to take place on the 15th of September 2024 at Icon Lounge. He had rehearsals with the (phenomenal) Double Black Band at Swangz Avenue earlier in the day – a set of rehearsals he was very excited for because it was his first opportunity to work with a live band to breathe some new life into his growing catalogue of music. He was set to make another song that he couldn’t stop listening to later in the day, but he did not know that yet. His first priority was to dial in his Xpressions set with the band.
After a fruitful few hours making tweaks and edits to the performance versions of his tracks the night before with Yannique (baddest producer in the game) came an equally fruitful practice session.
Kevin Mawejje came up with his ranking of the live versions of Senté’s songs in order of his favourite to his most favourite. (Y’all wanna let me know yours after the show? Hit me on socials.)
Then came the studio session at East African Records. Joe (who you’ll soon know by his new musical alter ego identity – Kezerod) when making his music, had written a beautiful song with Micah, his personal guitarist – a quiet and nonchalant yet argumentative fellow who’s unique perspective made for some spirited back-and-forth banter during the recording session. They wanted Senté’s help bringing the idea to life in the studio and they enlisted WANA Benjamin to be the first contestant in Senté’s latest brilliant idea: Engineering Wars ™.
With all of these idea factories in the room, could WANA manage the mixing challenge that was to befall him? Would he EVER finish balancing all Senté’s layers of singing, ad-libbing, whistling and harmonising? Would the noisy acoustic guitar have too much rumble to be useable? Would the music that came to Joe in a dream (Joe is very thorough and particular about his creative process) sound better or worse than he had conceptualised? Time was limited but WANA is a Mix Legend ™. Not even UMEME could stop him putting on an ELECTRIC performance at the mixing board.
And after a ~6 hour session (that was really closer to 4 hours working time because of you-know-what electricity service provider) the boys had a demo. They shot some content of themselves in the studio having fun and jamming to the music they created together, jumped in Micah’s car with the export and went on their merry way home – or at least to their homes for the night.
Senté watched the video they shot at least 75,000 times as he switched between writing lyrics and writing business plans in his notes because he was in a flow-state of ideas and inspiration (ADHD Hyperfocus). He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was on the precipice of something great – and he was excited to share more of himself, and his brilliant ideas, with the world. He was grateful for the gift of creativity and collaboration that always inspired him towards great things, and most of all, he was hoping people bought tickets to his show at Xpressions on Sunday 15th September 2024 so they could come and bear witness to some phenomenal East African artists putting on great performances.
And by the time he was done writing this piece, it was 3:40am and his sleep schedule was fully in the bin. The duality of experience in being a creative – it’s a gift and a curse sometimes 💀💀
