MJ has released a jazz and ghoema track called Mother City Vibes.
The instrumental song by MJ and the Camissa Knights was released mid-December but has already had extensive airplay on radio, gathered a following on social media and had more than 25 000 listens on YouTube.
Perhaps not the same kind of numbers that Michael Jackson would have pulled, especially from beyond the grave, but this MJ is actually an anti-Apartheid activist and former journalist.
Mansoor Jaffer of Wynberg composed Mother City Vibes. It was then arranged by veteran jazz musician and music educator George Werner of Surrey Estate, and recorded by MJ and the Camissa Knights. Jaffer and Werner played guitar and keyboard for the studio recording.
The other musicians that make up the band are Carlo Fabe from Westridge, Mitchells Plain, on drums; Peter Ndlala from Langa on bass; Muneeb Hermans from Hanover Park on trumpet; and Uviwe Caso from Nyanga on guitar.
“Just like the camissa, the historic stream at the bottom of Table Mountain that has come to encapsulate everything related to Cape Town, including its people, culture and history, the melody for Mother City Vibes came flowing out over time,” Jaffer said.
The song and video, released by the Cape Cultural Collective (CCC) on the Day of Reconciliation, 16 December, has struck a chord with audiences across the globe.
Jaffer says the music and images of Cape Town in the video resonate with people for different reasons.
“Some find it joyful, some find it nostalgic; it might even evoke some sadness in some people, thinking of our history, what we’ve been through. It signals familiarity, places where people live or have grown up or natural beauty that they’ve experienced growing up or struggles. It seems to have found a connection – both the video and the song – because of its Cape Town feel. It’s a combination of jazz, more specifically Cape jazz and ghoema, both of which have long traditions in our city.”
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Jaffer is the head of operations and a founder member of the Cape Cultural Collective. The collective has grown from humble beginnings in 2007 to a powerful arts movement, Jaffer said.
“I’ve always been a social guitarist, playing at gatherings such as braais. It’s only in the last 20 years that I’ve started taking music a little more seriously and I met with people and played and experimented with sounds and this song emerged during that period about 15 years ago; we called it ‘Chocolate Shake’, and it was just a product of experimentation and messing around in someone’s front room or kitchen with guitars and eventually a drum,” Jaffer said.
“It was only last year that I decided that the song could be recorded with a bit of good arrangement. I thought it had the Cape Town beat about it and needed that ghoema and jazz feel to be strengthened and that it could represent the feel and the beat and the spirit of Cape Town and hence we chose the name Mother City Vibes.”
Hermans said that for him, the song evokes “the sound of home”.
“Mother City Vibes immediately makes me think of home, and with home I mean Cape Town. We have a unique sound and Mother City Vibes brings that to the people.”
Mother City Vibes was recorded by Cape Town Sound and filmed by Tri-Squared. The project was undertaken under the banner of Triple C Recordings, one of the nine programmes of the CCC.
This is Jaffer’s second composition; his song Midnight Blue featured in the short film Address Unknown about the last postman of District Six.
The Camissa Knights, formed by George Werner with his former students, will be performing at this year’s Cape Town International Jazz Festival, which takes place on Friday 27 March and Saturday 28 March at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
View and share the video of Mother City Vibes on YouTube.
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