Speaking of making music, language and conversation, you have a lot of powerful textures in your vocal collaborations across your catalogue. My personal favourites are ‘Hoya’ feat. Tunde International which is Yoruba, yes? Then ‘Keladi’ feat, Ahmed Sosso which is in Wolof and ‘Khumbaya’ feat. Muneyi. Is that one TshiVenda?
Yes, correct! I love trying things out. In South Africa there are certain things we like that speak to us. But being exposed so early to the wider world, I’ve grown to become more open-minded, and we need to be open to hearing other people’s stuff. There are so many mother tongues in songs that cross over even though people don’t understand each other, but we can feel them. ‘Hoya’ was my first Yoruba track with Tunde, who I met through my manager; Tunde is his uncle. He is a big-time barber with a shop in the UK who cuts hair for some cool people, and he just sings there in the shop while he’s working. Growing up listening to Tunde sing stuck with him, and now that he’s in the music game he wants to explore what he could do with it. He sent me a video of Tunde singing in the shop, so I sent him a beat, and Tunde just freestyled another beat singing ‘Hoya’ on top of that. I could have been happy with just that, but I wanted to dive deep and digest the vocal; I wanted to figure out what it meant for me, even though I don’t understand Yoruba. It took me six months to digest, reconstructing another beat around his vocals that felt right for me.
As for Muneyi, this is in the top three of my favourite songs I’ve ever made. I’ve always liked Muneyi’s music… he’s quite a different, alternative artist. You need to see him perform to appreciate him even more because he turns TshiVenda into the most amazing sound! You hardly hear any TshiVenda on house tracks, and back then I didn’t have an identity sonically, I wanted to be different. I asked myself, “what would I want to consume? It’s time to own up to what I want.” So I reached out to Munyeyi.
The same with ‘Keladi’ and Ahmed; music should be an art piece… there should be an identity to it, and you should already know when you engage with it, who it belongs to. They have that and I wanted that. I wanted people to say “this is a Vanco track” even when the vocals changed.
That’s right, one can certainly tell which tracks are yours by the energy, even in your collaboration with DJ Lag on ‘Iza Ngamandla’ with Sykes. DJ Lag’s sonic identity is tough to walk beside, I imagine, and yet…
Yeah, me and Lag share quite a lot of mutual friends, but I connect with him deeply, he’s my bro. He supports what I do and I’ll always support what he does, there’s no ego involved which is what I like. And that time we were both doing a lot of stuff away from home but we’d always go watch each other perform if we were around. People don’t talk a lot about it but back then he was doing some crazy stuff with Beyoncé, but I felt like the appreciation for him and what he does wasn’t there. So when he reached out and said he was ready to do a track together, I said yes! Then he sent me this 3-Step beat and I was so, so rigid about it at first! That’s not what I make. But it turned into a beautiful thing, he opened me up to it. I can tell you right now, he really took me out of my comfort zone! Sonically, there’s so much to learn. I’ve spent the last two years in London quite a lot, because tracks like ‘Water’ before ‘Ma Tnsani’ helped me to expand my footprint around the world, so this next one coming with DEELA and the work I got to do with Skepta while there has been really cool to explore.
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As if that wasn’t enough, ‘Ma Tnsani’ really brought you and AYA into the spotlight. We’re living in some really interesting times, especially folks living in Kuwait, where they are from. How do you feel that the loose, fun, spontaneous way that you guys made the track can help us counter the tense energy that we’re experiencing today, especially considering music and dancefloors as places that can help us express, de-stress or escape?
There’s always a political aspect, and I feel like in the grand scheme of things this kind of political instability, wars and differences have been happening throughout history, since before we were born. But music, for me, connects people from different cultures, languages and religions. ‘Ma Tnsani’ blew up in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and it’s quite interesting to comprehend how different people who don’t understand each other could consume it. But I guess that’s what music is supposed to do! We can’t control it. For all we know, the same people who are fighting against each other in the war both like the same song. If there was a one world concert, and we dropped ‘Ma Tnsani’, all the people from different regions who are supposed to hate each other would be dancing to it, posting it, sharing it. Maybe even in the office there when they’re deciding to send a missile somewhere, they’re probably listening to that song, and on the receiving end, too… I wouldn’t know. There’s no way to know or control how people receive the music, but it connects us. So even if it feels like it’s out of our control, my job is to drop music that has love, respect and acknowledgment, and hope that bonds people together.
You’ve hit the nail on the head there, because there are some artists whose songs are being used to soundtrack propaganda during this war, and they were never made aware, like R.E.M., Jack White and even Beyoncé. Speaking of which, I’ve just read a book called The Invisible People by Nhleko Putuma, and he talks about how in 25 years, one-quarter of the human race worldwide will be African. Let’s do a quick “quantity survey” then. What is it going to cost us to make sure that as Africans, we have a better experience of the world? And do you think that with AI being what it is now, we’ll turn back toward live performances, live instrumentals, etc., and make a full circle journey back to the things that brought us here, because that’s the only way we’ll know for sure that music is human-made instead of generated by learning models?
In 2050 I’ll still be rocking! I’ll be 58, but I only want to retire after 70, so I’ll still be rocking this. But to answer your question, our music will reflect whatever society needs at the time that it’s being made. It’s hard to say what that will be. And as for AI, let me answer you in phases. You’re a writer. There’s no way in 2026 people could say that you’re legit because you use a typewriter. Or that only people who have suffered enough, or seen enough, are legit as opposed to people who live in a world where technology is sophisticated and convenient. You’re recording this conversation, you’re not using your memory, you know? So the world will always progress. Musicians used to have to go into the studio and actually play the drums, pianos, guitars and record. Now we have all of that in software. I’m part of that generation and I do play what I want to hear on the piano, but not everything is live. We use organic elements too. There are still some elements of technology there in live recordings, though. There’s still a human element to it when we use a prompt rather than spending 10 years cracking some skill. So it’s all about how you use these tools and when. If we had to say no to AI, then we have to go back and say no to Fruity Loops, no to Reason, no to Logic. Also, no sound engineers. And you, Shiba, can only use a typewriter. Or even go back to using ink and looking for some sophisticated paper with some good handwriting. It’s impossible now, you see? We have to evolve and adapt.
Right, and speaking of adapting, we also know that in some cultures, we have things like griots who could memorise long histories and pass them down generationally without needing to write or record them, but that skill was only entrusted to people who knew how to make sure they didn’t change or forget these stories. I suppose that’s why people come to you specifically for music or me for writing, as opposed to other people who write or make music. With modern griots, musicians, writers and with any technology, the human touch still matters because it takes using AI with integrity as well.
I agree with you, we need to tell our stories in the right way, irrespective of where you come from. We need to save our stories and keep our cultures. But kids of today? We can’t use the same key to pass down information with these kids because of the way they consume information. Before, you could sit for hours and hours around a fire and say let’s talk here. But if you try and sit a kid down today away from his iPad to tell him a story, he’ll get bored, thinking he needs to text someone! The tools we use have adapted to how information needs to land too. So I’m not here to tell people how they should pass down their information from generation to generation, but our stories need to be passed down properly, without being diluted – and it’ll be done the way our society needs it to be done.
In that case, let’s take a look at the story of your mix. What can we learn?
In the midst of my travels I was excited to jump off straight from the plane, head to the studio ; and put together a spontaneous mix, shaped by shifting emotions and made with pure passion.
Vanco’s ‘Repeat’ feat. DEELA is coming soon
Shiba Melissa Mazaza is a freelance writer, follow her on Instagram