The Album is FINISHED!
(but not without some heated arguments, exhaustion, and a little machine gun fire)
Not bad for completing it within our first two weeks! The msela very took the project very seriously and wanted to go hard on recording everyday until all six tracks were completed. It was interesting to see them start to tire out as the end of the week neared, but it’s no wonder. We (Danya, Jay and I) were all exhausted from day after day filming in the “Bikram Room” (did I mention it was 30-35 outside and felt like a cool oasis in comparision to the studio, let alone the “booth” which was a few degrees hotter still) and these guys (we had to keep reminding ourselves) sleep outside on the street and still have to get at sunrise and wash cars until 11am when they meet us outside our hostel to head to the studio. It was impressive what they were able to accomplish, negotiating which tracks to record, deciding who would sing the verses, taking direction from the producers, and none of them having never seen the inside of a recording studio, let alone create an entire album.
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Posted in all posts | Nov 12, 2008 at 12:40 pm | No Comments »
Finding a Film in the Ghetto
Cross-posted from jaygrandin.com
Every day for the past five we’ve been boarding the dala dala and making the trek, crammed shoulder to shoulder [or armpit to nose, or crotch to ass, or afro to ear], to the uswailini, the ghetto, to record this album. The amount of people on these “buses” would be grounds for an immediate safety inquiry back home. And the way they barrel down the road despite pedestrian congestion shows a firm grasp of physics: the driver clearly understands that in a battle of gravity + momentum + physical density that they will win every time… so why bother slowing down. I’ll tell you though, it sure makes crossing the street a safari in its own right.
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Posted in all posts | Nov 4, 2008 at 12:10 pm | No Comments »
Laying Down the First Track
Cross-posted from jaygrandin.com
Let me kick off this post with something unrelated: You know how mice can squeeze themselves through the smallest of spaces… under doors, etc. It’s amazing, right? Well, have you ever seen a taxi do that? Neither had I… until now. I honestly don’t know how they do it, but the cab drivers here manage to squeeze their way, at a stunning speed, through the tiniest of spaces. It’s like they’re oiled up and everything else, if they touch it at all, is clad in sandwich wrap. Mid-conversation, like it’s no big thing, they slip and slide between dala dalas and SUVs, pedestrians and banana-filled wheel barrels. It blows my mind. Every time.
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Posted in all posts | Nov 4, 2008 at 12:08 pm | No Comments »
