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Musical explorers: The many-headed hydra

African Business, Mar 2008

Musical explorers

The many-headed hydra

Camping Shaâbi

Think of One

Crammed Discs

CRAW 42

Building some Of the most unlikely alliances in World Music, Belgian beatniks Think of One have a well-deserved reputation for working with artists of various musical genres and creating performances and recordings that delight and inspire.

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Think of One are based in Antwerp, Belgium. Better known for its diamond trade, Think of One have put this otherwise fairly conservative city on the World Music map. They have taken over a huge warehouse on Antwerp's industrial outskirts and converted it into their world headquarters, building a rehearsal space, studio, workshop and a garage for the various trucks and caravans they use to take their music to wherever they choose. For this band took a decision some time ago that rather than wait for people to come to them and book them for concerts, festivals and performances, they would take their brand of what has been described as 'sweet mayhem' to the world.

A decade-long history of producing ground-breaking musical collaborations has seen them working with musicians from Recife in north-east Brazil; forming a six-piece Balkan-flavoured gypsy brass section; joining forces with Canadian Inuit Indians and pooling their musical resources with Moroccan Gnawa musicians.

The band, which works as a collective led by its founder and lead singer David Bovée, is named after a classic track recorded by the legendary US jazz pianist Theolonius Monk. They tour in a specially designed truck that converts into a three-tiered wooden stage that incorporates a mobile sound system.

In 2004, seven years after the release of their first album Juggernaut, they won the prestigious and appropriately tided 'Boundary Crossing' award, and last year were nominated for the BBC's Awards for World Music in the 'Culture Crossing' category.

Following their Boundary Crossing triumph, they signed up to the Brussels-based record label Crammed Discs - responsible for the 2005 release of the awardwinning recordings of an electrified diumb-piano ensemble from the suburbs of Kinshasa, DR Congo, the Congotronics.

The Congotronics' album, Buzz'n'rumble from the urb'n jungle, is acknowledged as one of the most musically revolutionary and progressive albums to emerge from Africa for many years.

Long-term relationships

It is notable that Think of One's worldwide collaborations are not simply one-off projects. Rather, the band has a strategy of building long-term working musical relationships. They have recorded two albums with their Brazilian partners beginning with Chuva em Pó in 2004 and releasing Tráfico nearly two years later.

And this album is evidence of the strong ties Think of One have built with musicians from Marrakesh in southern Morocco. It is their fourth album incorporating elements of Moroccan shaâbi, a popular musical style whose irresistible rhythms are directly derived from traditional Berber music.

Shaâbi songs were, and still are, closely associated with celebrations, parties and weddings even if, in recent years, shaâbi has become massively popular diroughout North Africa and in Europe's big cities where there are substantial North African populations. Littie wonder that Think of One should decide to fuse shaâbi and euroamerican urban music such as hip-hop, drum n'bass, reggae, hard rock and jazz.

They began this album by composing 14 songs in Marrakesh and Antwerp with five Moroccan collaborators, some of whom they had already worked widi: singers and percussionists Amina Tcherkich and Lalabrouk Loujabe (both members of an all-woman Houara band based in Marrakech), Gnawi musician and singer Ab El Kebir Bensalloum (also from Marrakech), and "The Twins', Hicham and Hakim Bouanani Moulay, renowned musicians on Brussels' shaâbi circuit.

The album also features remarkable guest appearances by Mustapha Bourgogne (one of Morocco's biggest shaâbi stars), Belgian/ Tunisian singer Ghalia Benali, Belgian/Algerian rapper Brahim Tayeb, singer Véronique Vincent and vocal group Laïs.

The lyrics are sometimes surreal and dream-like but often connected to global social issues which concern the band. Camping Shaâbi was composed in Marrakech and Antwerp, recorded in Brussels and mixed in Paris. Produced by Yann Arnaud, it is another incarnation of the ever-changing many-headed hydra that is the phenomena, Think of One.

Musical explorers: The many-headed hydra

African Business, Mar 2008

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