Luaka Bop: Zap Mama

THE CDW INTERVIEW WITH Zap Mama
Does getting labelled - or at least filed under - "WorldMusic" frustrate you?
Yes! For a lot of people "World Music" is considered [musicfrom] the Third World. It's an attempt to categorise it. You know, it's from "poor people", "far away" who "suffer" and need "pity"… and I don't want to deal with that. I don't want to see it this music as some African form and not a personal thing - we still see it as a global thing, rather than a certain artist who's recognised by their name. Like Picasso or other Western artists who are respected as individuals. There is so much to learn from the other parts of the world. So what I try to do is make this knowledge accessible to the Western world - and vice versa, if I can. You have more respect forpeople when you understand music and art.

How do you feel about unscrupulous record companies watering down African music, recycling and re-packaging it for Western ears…with "exotic" or "tribal" stereotypes?
I remember in the beginning they tried to do that with Zap Mama - and I fought against it. When I stopped [doing] a cappella and tried something else, they were like "what about you and your African clothes?" And I was like "what, you still want me to eat a banana?" It's the way I react. I say: "No, I'm not going with you. I grew up in the Western world and I understand what you want, but I'm not your flower. I'm a flower for myself." So I say: "Learn more, better your mind and respect a person and their spirit." And deeper than that, there is a lot of spirituality in so-called "Third World" music. One should have a better appreciation for that music.

Bayete's Jabu Khanyile once suggested that if critics continue to label music that's not from America or Britain as "World Music", then that's fine because it means that "we are the world, not them".Do you agree? That's cool to hear that. It's true - we are the world.And I think that now with the global village of the Internet we can spread communication,there's no need for labels. I believe that doing shows and talking about my art simply can be very interesting. I see the world as yin and yang. There is a lot of"good" and a lot of "bad"… and one way or another, both keep each other in perfect balance. So it is my task to reflect a positive message in my music, because that is what the world needs. My new songs are about small, daily things.

Give us some examples… Well, "Bandy Bandy" is a song about the oppression of a big city, and how to escape it by having a walk, allowing yourself to be astonished by the beauty of nature. [Maybe it's] an ant, a bird or a tree… all these small things. I learned that from my American friends in New York: people who have lived there for a long time, but still feel very close to nature. And the message of "Yelling Away" is that no matter how hard life may be,try to escape from the gray reality. That is the question I ask myself on this record: how can people get happy and live a good life, even if everything else goes wrong?

Sounds like Ancestry is telling a story. Is it fair to say that each song is almost like a postcard of a situation that the listener can relate to? Yes. Ancestry is like an imaginary journey... [take the song] "Miss Q". [It's] what Ancestry in Progress is all about: it tells how we are all looking for happiness, having the impression that we have to travel the whole world or make the dreams that television shows us come true. While the way to happiness is here - being yourself and at peace with oneself.

You once described Zap Mama as "a mixture of different styles. Traditional African music, embedded in modern sounds." Are you songwriter who's consciously influenced by what you listen to? Yes. I'm listening more to disco or electronic music now. I find it very interesting mixing electronic and acoustic sounds. I have experimented with that, which was great. And I discovered break beat artists – that was really cool. With Erykah I discovered a lot of 70s soul. For the moment I listen to the old 70s stuff, like Aretha. My mother was listening to that, so I have a connection with that too! But at the same time I've been happy to discover any new sounds – I'm happy to listen to drum 'n bass, breakbeat, ragga, dancehall... I'm a happy person. I like dancing! (laughs) Moving my body and dancing like crazy all night long? That's for me!

Is it fair to say that by embracing all these diverse styles, your album is almost a musical memory map, tracing the African musical beat routes that are the bedrock of so much contemporary music like jazz, soul and the blues? Yes. That's exactly what's going on. Just to hear you understand and explain it well is great!

Collaboration has also always been at the core of Zap Mama, hasn't it? How did working with The Roots and ErykahBadu come about?Yes, that's true. But the choice of the artists was not something I specially chose or planned to do. What happened was I asked The Roots to produce one or two songs. And afterwards I received a call from ErykahBadu and she said, "I want to sing on your album, I want you to meet me and be my friend." She invited me and we became friends! Erykah understands deeply what I've been doing since the beginning, and she wants to share that. To have a meeting of two soul artists and to share the message I have underneath… it's really talking about the ancestry. I mean, what's happening in the African world and what we can bring to the history of Afro-American and Afro-Western people and the fusion that comes from there.