Listen to James Gogo's Hatua album
Kenyan musician and producer James Gogo released his Hatua album yesterday.
The self-produced, 14-track album takes the listener on an electric journey through a mixture of genres, including taarab, salsa, rumba and R&B.
The story of why the album came to be is simple. “I wanted to do an album that everyone could relate to,” Gogo tells Music In Africa. "I treasure my musical past but at the same time I don't want to live there. So I wanted to do something that could be appreciated by people who really understand music and also the young people who tend to be very specific about genres. And the response from my latest release confirms that I managed to do that.”
The album's opening track, ‘One of a Kind’, was inspired by ‘Nenda Ukaliwe Pesa’, a classical taarab song originally composed by Khadija Barmaid, while ‘Mnyonge’ dives straight into an infectious smooth beat.
Gogo embraces his Congolese heritage in ‘Sama Sama’, which has the signature sound popularised by the third generation of Congolese rumba musicians.
The enigmatic musician has made strides with his music over the past few years, particularly in the Kenyan jazz scene. The melding of genres in Hatua confirms Gogo’s artistic ability to spontaneously dabble in different 'old school' styles, unlike most contemporary Kenyan who are reluctant to indulge in traditional music.
Stream and buy James Gogo's Hatua album here.
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