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Reviews
Songlines, July 2008
The charming Feliciano dos Santos is sitting in a room at the Charing Cross
Hotel – lean, shaven-headed, a large silver cross on a chain around his
neck. This is his fifth interview in six hours, but his enthusiasm for talking
seems not to have diminished. As a singer and sanitation activist from Mozambique,
it is not every day that you win the $150,000 Goldman Prize – the environmental
equivalent of the Nobel.
“It was like something that had come from the Gods!” Santos laughs. “Before they called me I’d never even heard of it! I looked at their website and there were all the past winners: Ken Saro-Wiwa from Nigeria, Wangari Maathai from Kenya, who became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize… And now there’s me as well!”
As leader of Massukos – fast becoming one of Mozambique’s best-known bands – Santos has achieved quite a reputation over the past few years, both as a musician and a campaigner. In 2005 he performed in front of 100,000 people at the Make Poverty History rally in Edinburgh and visited 10 Downing Street to present Tony Blair with a petition on behalf of WaterAid, while in 2007, he and Massukos returned to the UK to play at the WOMAD Festival, Charlton Park. Unusually, however, Santos doesn’t just sing about social and environmental issues, he also puts his message into practice. As founder and director of Estamos, an NGO based in his home province of Niassa, he spends about 80% of his time working directly with villagers to provide community sanitation, promote sustainable agriculture and reforestation projects and help those suffering from HIV and AIDS.
“All of my life I have seen the problems of poverty,” Santos explains. “As a child, I lived in Mecula, a village in the north of Mozambique, close to the border with Tanzania, and the conditions there were very, very bad. At the age of two, I became ill from polio, which affected my legs. Even today I am disabled. My one leg is very painful. But at the time there was no education, and even my family didn’t link polio with the lack of clean water and sanitation.”
Santos was born in 1964: the same year that the FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) guerrillas began the Mozambican war of independence. In 1975, the Portuguese conceded defeat, but no sooner had the country become independent than it was plunged into a 17-year civil war – pitting FRELIMO against the conservative RENAMO (Resistência Nacional Moçambicana) – which saw the deaths of over a million people and the displacement of some five and a half million more. In both of these conflicts, northern Mozambique was hit particularly badly. By 1992, when the fighting finally came to an end, its infrastructure was destroyed, its schools and hospitals were demolished and its population was decimated. Mozambique was the poorest country in the world, and Niassa was its poorest province.
“The best thing in life when I was a child was always the music.” Santos joins his long, guitarist’s fingers on the desk in front of him. “I loved to listen to the rumba music from Tanzania on the radio, and I loved the local music – flute and drums – which people would play at night around the fire. I didn’t see an actual live band until I was eight years old, when my father died and we moved to the provincial capital of Lichinga. So the first band I saw was the Metangula Jazz Band, which came from a local town and played sungura [rumba] – Kenyan, Tanzanian sungura – on homemade instruments. Later, foreign bands would visit Lichinga sometimes. In 1976, I remember, Oliver Mtukudzi and the Black Spirits came from Zimbabwe. That was great! Ever since then I have loved Oliver Mtukudzi.”
“But it was the traditional music that really taught me about the power of music to communicate with people and to bring about change. For example, if I go home to my house and hear my wife singing in the kitchen I may not be able to hear the lyrics, but I can hear the melody. I can understand what she is feeling. The melody is the mirror of the situation. This is something that I’ve understood since I was very young, and it is particularly important as a musician in Mozambique, where we have 20 different languages and deep tribal divisions. When we released our first album, I remember, the press called Massukos a symbol of unity, because of our approach to melody and because we sing in so many languages: Macua, Shangaan, Chichewa, even languages from Zimbabwe.”
In a curious symmetry with Santos’ birth, the first gig that Massukos ever played was in 1992, at an event marking the end of the civil war. Santos had performed with bands before, but Massukos was something entirely different. Unlike anyone else in Niassa, they played local music, not covers or impersonations – even if they weren’t exactly today’s slick Afro-pop eight-piece of keyboards, drumkit, bass, acoustic and electric guitars.
“I’ll tell you something,” Santos says, leaning forwards confidentially. “The first electric guitar I played, at our first concert. You know those electronic watches? Well, I heard the music playing inside, so I opened up a watch, plugged in two wires, attached it to a small amplifier and taped it inside an acoustic guitar. And that was our first concert! That was my pick-up!”
“We were very lucky that day. Because of the ceasefire, Lichinga was full of the UNA [United Nations Association], and they liked our music. This one guy from the UNA gave us $200, so we sent to the capital, Maputo, for a small keyboard and an electric guitar, and that is how we started.”
The impact of Massukos – on Mozambique and on Niassa particularly – can hardly be overstated. The band have become ambassadors for their province. Their first CD, Kuimba Kwa Massuko, was released in 2001 and sold 80,000 copies, while their follow-up album, Bumping (reviewed in #46), reached number six in the European World Music Chart last year. Their music has altered the balance of influence in their home country, and it has finally got the politicians listening to this remote province where more than half the population still lives in extreme poverty, without access to basic sanitation.
“People from Niassa used to feel ashamed to come from Niassa,” Santos says seriously. “If they travelled to other parts of Mozambique, they would always say that they came from somewhere else, but these days you can go to Maputo and find people on the street selling Massukos CDs, and they’ll say: ‘This is music from my place!’ So we’re proud of what we’ve done. Our music has become so popular now that even last week, at the launch of our national sanitation campaign, the prime minister got up and sang one of our songs to the audience!”
So what does the future look like for Massukos? Santos takes a deep breath. “Oh, we are very, very busy! We have a lot of touring coming up. We are touring here in the UK in June and July, when we’ll be trying out new songs, new sounds, more traditional elements. We hope to record another album then too, and we’ve got a new female singer, Merci Manuel Nambale.”
And what will Santos do with the prize money? “Well,” he smiles at the inevitable question, “I have time to think about it, but I won’t forget the water and sanitation projects. I won’t forget Estamos. But also I remember that I came to London two years ago and I saw this electric guitar. Oh,” he rolls his eyes to the ceiling, “it was so nice, but so expensive… So, maybe this time!”
Massukos perform at Africa Oyé and Glastonbury festivals. See On The
Road for further tour dates.
www.goldmanprize.org
The Independent, June 2008
Massukos, The Salmon & Compass, London
Every woman in the crowd is swaying her hips to Massukos's elastic rhythms, right to the back of this pub in Islington, north London. You don't need to have seen the film and talk that preceded the Mozambiquans' triumphant set to enjoy this party. But the social needs they sketch in are the whole reason Massukos are here.
They formed in northern Mozambique in 1994, as the civil war that followed independence from Portugal and drove most musicians into exile finally ended. They meant to preserve Mozambiquan musical traditions, and use them to carry life-saving messages about sanitation and water, often as simple as "wash your hands". These are protest and educational songs about toilets, then, and the Aids pandemic too. But this is crucial music.
Massukos's band-leader Feliciano dos Santos rarely takes centre-stage, letting others lead the singing. With him running a sanitation NGO and winning major environmental awards back home, you can only assume that social responsibility rather than stardom is his top priority. But on the first night of an extensive UK tour, tonight his only responsibility is dancing.
Rich harmonies and the female dancer's ululation hit you first. A keyboard that conjures brass, British guest Dean Brodrick's accordion taking the place of strings, and a guitar that sometimes acts as sax, see roles merge and transpose. Djembe and hand-drums join Manuel Dihuaia's kit in driving rhythms, while the vocals are still more percussive. On "Niassa", the crowd join in the "Mozambique" chorus, and the weirdness of this music taking a foothold in a noisy pub fades away.
"Pangira" is effectively a ballad that hints at the Stones' "Angie", whatever sanitation issues it may highlight, huskily sung by hand-drummer Simao Fontes. The bubbling guitar of "Mudacia Wana", the leaping, flowing rhythms of "Ntolio", and the train station clang of "Bumping" add to an intricate sound. If this music, highly dramatic and ceaselessly danceable, is the Mozambiquan tradition Massukos meant to save, you can only say thank you.
During the last number, surely designed to end a late-night dance in some African club, a man pirouettes bashfully with the band's female dancer, and their gentle conquest seems complete.
Reviewed by Nick Hasted
Time Out, June 2008
Afrobeat superstars hit the capital
Combining the musicianly presence of Buena Vista Social Club and the political activism of Midnight Oil (and thankfully not the other way round), Massukos are Mozambique's biggest band, packing out dance floors from Maputo to Glasto with their indefatigably sunny brand of socio-political Afro pop. Bandleader Feliciano dos Santos has just knocked the wind out of Bono and Sir Bob's Champagne-socialist sails by becoming the latest recipient of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Award. They do good and they sound even better, as their assured sophomore set, the aptly titled 'Bumping' proves, ploughing through the fertile terrain of reggae, samba and acoustic folk to unearth 11 giddy guitar gems. They deserve to be Africa's next big musical export.
Although recently returned from 14 dates in Cuba in time for Glastonbury and a three-week tour of the UK, Massukos hail from Niassa, Mozambique's impoverished northern province, where a 17-year civil war has been replaced by the fight against HIV/AIDS and the battle for clean water and sanitation. It's a crusade this intrepid eight-piece have taken up with missionary zeal, doorstepping politicians and travelling to remote villages to spread their life-saving messages to the people who most need to hear it.
'On one side we are doing work that has big social impact,' explains the remarkable musical activist dos Santos, 'and on the other, we harvest the materials for the music. In the community there is the well of life; we drink, we experience, then after we export for the world.'
Tamara Gausi
World Music Central, February 2008
I sought out Bumping after seeing it reviewed in the ever-trusty UK magazine Songlines. Being entirely unfamiliar with the band Massukos but quite attached to what little music I have from their home country of Mozambique, I was curious for a listen. And oh my, how sweet the sounds that greeted my ears.
Most of the songs have a feel that weighs in somewhere between reggae, marrabenta (Mozambique's signature style) and breezy pan-Lusafrican pop, and there's not a weak track to be heard. The group formed in the mid-'90s as Mozambique's lengthy civil war was winding down, though they didn't record their first album until 2001(Bumping is their second).
Maybe their unhurried pace has something to do with how beautifully structured and rhythmically alive their music is. Whatever the reason, their blend of electric and acoustic guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, several levels of percussion, enchanting vocals and occasional horn and accordion flavoring is a joy that's sustained through every second of this highly recommended CD. (www.massukos.org)
(A word about the organization responsible for the release of Bumping : Poo Productions, despite their whimsical name and the fact that their logo is a toilet seat, is seriously dedicated to the cause of promoting greater hygienic and sanitary conditions in places where such things are lacking. With the assistance of artists like Massukos, the message is getting out and things are changing for the better. Additional information can be found at www.pooproductions.org.)
Songlines, September 2007 (nominated "Top of the World" album)
One of the great frustrations for the fan of Mozambican music is that there are so few decent recordings available. Since the end of the civil war 15 years ago, Mozambique’s explosion of creative talent has far outstripped the capacity of its music industry, and it is a delight to hear any album that reflects the irresistible optimism of the country’s live scene. In Mozambique, Massukos have long been stars. They are the pre-eminent group of the northern Niassa province and their first album, 2001’s Kuimba Kwa Massuko, sold 80,000 copies. But even this hardly prepares you for the sheer joy of Bumping, their first international release.
Right from the start, Bumping is all about momentum. It kicks off with the instantly catchy, reggae-flavoured groove of ‘Mudacia Wana’, and maintains the tempo through traditional drums-and-voices numbers like ‘Akwekwe’ and the horn-fuelled marrabenta of ‘Niassa’. It is a sign of the band’s self-confidence that their more traditional material is every bit as exciting as their guitar-led Afro-pop, and their unerring instincts are confirmed on the genuinely moving ‘Pangira’, their one tear-jerker.
This is a glorious showing, and you can only hope that Massukos have another album coming out soon.
Tom Bullough
fRoots Bumping Review, November 2007
Never before has a plea for effective sanitation sounded so entertaining. Massukos, "Mozambique's national treasures", make uplifting Southern African pop and campaign for cleaner water and general good hygiene (their record label is called Poo Productions, its logo a drawing of a toilet seat). A worthy message, then, delivered via some straightforward but pretty damn irresistible music.
Their formula is refreshingly simple, no attempts to techno things up, but equally no pretend trad to pander to western heritage tastes, just sweet melodies, bubbling organ, strong guitar lines and danceable rhythms. This, their second album, was recorded at South London's Albany Studios last time they were over in the UK and benefits from the added spice of a firing horn section led by legendary jazz vet Harry Beckett. The band can get tougher and more percussive when the fancy takes them or slow things down and let the voice of leader Feliciano dos Santos shine (as on the charming and soulful Pangira) even add a dash of reggae to the mix (Ndjango fair skanks along). Much of the music made in the Lusophone countries is too pretty and pallid for my tastes, but this has got just the right combination of sugar and sinew to hit the spot.
Jamie Renton
fRoots FEATURE, November 2007
Mozambique's Massukos make uplifting dance music out of serious issues. Con Murphy gets the message.
A pop band that uses music to spread a message promoting clean water, decent sanitation and Aids-awareness must be filed under the heading 'worthy but dull', right? Not so in the case of Massukos, the exuberantly catchy force for good and uplifting musical torch-bearer for one of the poorest parts of Africa. Situated in the north of the country, Niassa is Mozambique's most sparsely populated province, with a population of about one million spread over an area roughly the size of England. For many years, it has also been the poorest, ravaged by civil war, Aids and water sanitation problems.
Enter one Feliciano dos Santos, a journalist working for Radio Mozambique in the early '90s, reporting on the country's attempts to get back on its feet as peace took tentative hold in the region. Feliciano: "We were producing programmes that talked about social problems, water sanitation, that kind of thing. Eventually, I decided that I wanted to get more involved in what we were reporting about."
In dos Santos's world - where he has spent most of his life dealing with the physical constraints caused by a childhood bout of polio - practicalities are addressed head on, so involvement led to the founding of the Estamos NGO in 1996, where he set about introducing an integrated water supply and improved sanitation, as well as home-based care for people with HIV. "I'd say about 80% of my time is spent on Estamos projects. As director of Estamos I'm busy working in the office most of the time, planning and running projects. Then we go out and use music at the time we want to spread the message. The rest of the band members also work for Estamos or on other social programmes."
The medium for the message is a sunny, effervescent guitar-based music, a kind of soulful, socially-conscious equivalent of Zimbabwe's Bhundu Boys, augmented by keyboards and with a dance-friendly rhythm based on the traditional music of the Niassa area. "When the civil war finished [in 1992], we wondered how we could celebrate people's feeling of relief at surviving, and their return from Malawi and Tanzania where they had been refugees. So, we decided we needed to record our culture, to get our traditional sound back, putting it with electronic instruments to give it the power to get our message across."
Massukos was formed in 1994, and after becoming popular in Niassa, they recorded their first album, Kuimba Kwa Massuko, in Maputo in 2002. "That was because there were no decent studios in Niassa," explains dos Santos. "And despite travelling 2,000 kilometres to record the album, we didn't realise our music would be so popular, we were not even fully professional. But the album spread all over Mozambique - it just took off like crazy, and now we're one of the best-selling bands in the country."
In 2004, British musician Dean Brodrick's band Empty Boat toured Africa as part of Poo Productions, a London-based media company dedicated to promoting clean water in Africa. Feliciano: "The Empty Boat project came to Niassa, and we worked really well together. Dean suggested that we record an album in the UK, with him as co-producer. There is good recording quality in some studios in Maputo," explains dos Santos, "but in London we found acoustics to fit the more universal sound that we were looking for." Anybody who witnessed the breezy performance by Massukos at this year's mud-caked Womad festival at Charlton Park will find the resultant album, the aptly-titled Bumping, to be a satisfyingly upbeat reflection of the band's appealing live sound, with added funky brass interjections by Brodrick's jazz musician friends Harry Beckett and Steve Buckley.
I wonder how Massukos reconcile their resolutely cheery approach with the serious subject matter of the songs. "Sometimes a message is too shocking for people to take in at first," he replies. "We are talking about serious social themes, but we invite people to dance first, we try to win people over to the music, then they'll get the message later. Plus, there are more than twenty languages in Mozambique, so we have to communicate first through the music!"
And with something over 80,000 copies of Bumping already sold in their native country, Massukos are clearly communicating very successfully, inevitably attracting the interest of politicians and other public figures (such as Gordon Brown and Sir Bob Geldof) who are keen to be seen showing an interest in Africans' welfare. Feliciano remains admirably diplomatic about such image-enhancing meetings. "The people we meet are generally open and willing to hear the issues we have, and what we do about them. But I can't do anything else but just tell them the way things are and what we are doing about it - it's up to them to decide what they do next." Welcome to the new, pragmatic face of African activism. With guitars.
Independent, Sunday 5 August, 2007 (outstanding)
The drummer seems set on taking his snare by surprise, the keyboard player loves the warm wash of the Hammond, and on "Ndjango" the guitarist packs a Costello punch circa "Watching the Detectives". This great band – already big at home in Mozambique – are a joy live, as you may have experienced last weekend at WOMAD. But this infectious album feels live anyway, in that it captures the apparently effortless interaction between the musicians and conveys the fun they are having. Bright, sun-drenched music with enough edge to keep your mind as well as your feet engaged. Howard Male.
****The Guardian, Friday 6 July, 2007
In Africa, as in Brazil, it seems that idealism and great music go together with ease. After the recent shows by AfroReggae, those musical social workers from Rio, here's a glorious band from Mozambique who spend much of their time involved with sanitation and HIV projects, but still manage to be some of the most uplifting musicians in the country. Massukos play light, chiming guitar-pop, like a more easy-going and soulful answer to that great 1980s band the Bhundu Boys, from Zimbabwe. There's nothing amazingly unusual about their songs, except that they are tight, infectious and charming. The album sneaks up on you with light, gently driving songs such as Muamwali that deserve to become dance floor favourites. I suspect their appearances at Womad will be even better. Robin Denselow Bumping, The Guardian
WOMAD PROGRAM, July 2007
"Lithe, shimmering grooves made for a WOMAD Saturday afternoon.
Released in the UK, just a couple of weeks ago, Bumping is an irresistible charmer of a record, one that can leave no limb unmoved. And don't just take our word for it. this nation's musical taste-makers have been queuing up to lavish praise upon the seven-piece, among them Andy Kershaw, Charlie Gillett and the recently anointed Michael Eavis CBE. And not only do Massukos lay down the sunniest grooves imaginable, they're also know for their humanitarian work back home and for telling the rest of the world how it is in post-colonial Mozambique. Come show your support for one of Africa's poorest countries – and do so through the medium of a little booty-shaking.
Womad 2007 photos
Fly Global Music Culture, Thursday 5 July 2007
Massukos is more than a band – it’s a living breathing force for good in Mozambique – and Bumping is a jubilant, uplifting musical torch bearer for one of the poorest parts of Africa.
Hailing from the Niassa province, lead singer and guitarist Feliciano dos Santos combines his day job as director of the NGO Estamos (dedicated to clean water and decent sanitation) with that of spreading his message via the dance-friendly rhythms preserved through this exuberant modern take on the traditional music of the area.
These aren’t worthy but dull socially-aware songs, nor is the music reverently preserved in aspic. It’s all ebullient, bubbly stuff, with dos Santos’s rhythm guitar dovetailing with electric guitar, bass, sparky percussion, fluid waves of organ from Carlos Alvaro Socrates and colourful interjections from a brass section comprising guest jazz musicians Harry Beckett, Steve Buckley and Dean Brodrick.
‘Mudacia Wana’ gets the album off to a rousing start, with its subtle dance beat, gorgeous call and response harmonies, mellifluous guitar and subtle overlays of keyboard. And there’s some nice, chunky ska-style electric guitar on the next track, ’ Ndjango’. It continues in this bright, inventive vein throughout, each track as alluring as the next while remaining unique enough to keep things interesting - whether it be the raunchy, bass-driven title-track, the sing-along sweetness of ‘Ntolilo’ or any of the other slight, subtle shifts of tone. Only the ballad ‘Pangira’ lowers the temperature, and it jars slightly in the context of this suite of songs, its acoustic, unplugged reprise at the end of the CD being a more natural way of bringing the mood down.
But that very slight reservation apart, if the remaining nine shots of inspirational musical optimism are anything to go by, Massukos are one of the must-see acts at this year’s WOMAD festival at Charlton Park. If you can’t make that event, fear not because this album has the power to bring sunshine and hope wherever it is played. Conon Murphy
Bumping, Fly Global Music Culture
HMV CHOICE, June 2007
Mozambique, the former Portuguese colony, was devastated by decades of civil war between CIA and Soviet financed armies, which eventually ended in 1992. As the nation slowly rebuilds its once thriving music scene is returning to life and Massukos are the most prominent example of how exciting this vibrant country can be.
The 11 songs here demonstrate how the seven member band can mix jazz and Portuguese influences with strong Afro-grooves that means this CD more than lives up to its title of Bumping. Just try not to dance around the room when the title track and Ndjango are playing.
Bandleader Feliciano dos Santos works by day as a director of a non-governmental organisation aimed at helping some of Africa's poorest people. That he finds the time to lead Massukos and make such startling music is inspirational. From Mozambique to Womad and beyond, Massukos are a band on the rise. Garth Cartwright, HMV Choice
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