In the month of May 2015 during his East African tour, I was lucky to catch Dar es Salam’s Leo Makinya in between sessions for a new song off his yet to be titled album he was recording at Ketebul Music Studios and the busy artist was able to grant me an interview. The self-professed Swahili Blues singer spoke to me more about the sounds that shape his music and the album he is working on.
At what point in your life were you sure that you wanted to do music as a career?
I was playing with a guitar like a toy when I was a child, watching as my father and his friends played and I grew up thinking every human being could play the guitar. As I got older, I realized this was not the case when I asked some friends if they could play the guitar and they responded no. It’s easy, I said. Yet not everyone could play. I would later take the art professionally.
Why do you call your music Swahili blues?
I call it Swahili blues because it’s a mixture of Swahili songs with blues elements. I came up with this genre after I found out the music from Tanzania is purely typically blues but no one calls it that. The way we sing and the way we play our local instruments sound very much like blues so I decided to name it that as I compose my music in Kiswahili language and adopt the styles and rhythms from my tribe back home in Tanzania and use them on guitar chords. This is how my music sounds the way it sounds: jazzy and bluesy.
Why did you choose to work with Ketebul Music over any other label? How did the whole Ketebul Music collaboration come about? How did you meet each other?
Well Ketebul understands my music deeply and what I’m doing (laughs). When I met them they understood me well and gave me this opportunity to produce and record my CD here. So I thought, that’s a beautiful opportunity! Let me use it since I don’t get to record much back home in Dar es Saalam.
I first came to Nairobi in December of 2014 and I visited Ketebul Music with my music on a flash disk. I met the director of Ketebul Music, Mr. Tabu Osusa and introduced myself to him. I asked him if he’d listen to my music, which he did, and he liked it and he said: ‘’the music is good’’. We did interviews around and we did one recording at Ketebul Music. I then left and returned home to Dar es Salaam. I later got booked for Sauti Za Busara in Zanzibar and some events in Nairobi and also in Ethiopia. After all these concerts I got the opportunity to record here (Ketebul Music Studios) so that’s what happened.
What are your expectations for this album?
This album from my point of view is going to introduce Swahili Blues to the world.
Taking into consideration that you’re recording this album in Nairobi and not in Dar es Salaam, do you think the influences on your sound may affect your fans back home?
There are many influences; Kenyan, Ethiopian, Tanzanian, my mum’s tribe and my dad’s tribe. So it’s like a mixture of all these because that’s the life that I’m living. This CD is a representation of my life. In some songs I’m talking about Ethiopia and I even add some Ahmaric just to spice it up and make it more interesting and not rigid. The influences are definitely there in a very positive wa