This band has embraced a genre of music that is somewhat neglected in Africa today. With creative videos, unique sounds, and great music, they are putting afro/techno-house on the map. Their latest release “Scratch To Reveal” is already making headlines. Billy “Blink” Selanga, Dan Muli, and Jim Chuchu are the ‘boys’ of the band, and they let us scratch the surface to discover what lies beneath!

1. Your brand of music is somewhat off the beaten track. What made you decide to pick this genre of music?

BLINKY: I don’t think we picked it per se, we just do music that we like, so it’s been everyone bringing their influences to the table and mashing it up. There’s jazz, hip hop, house and rock(ish) African stuff all thrown into that pot.

DAN: We wanted to make music that is inspired by what we like to listen to, but hopefully flipped a little to make it something new and unique. Right now the music clearly shows its influences; house, neo-soul, a touch of punk music and so forth, but hopefully, once all is said and done and we’ve developed our sound into some as-yet-unnamed zone of mad sonic experimentation, it’ll defy genre classifications! As a creative person, you have to choose between delivering what your audience wants, and exploring (i.e. being creative), and you have to strike your own balance. We may be a little bit out there, in terms of what goes on locally, but we’re still just trying to move the people, but in new ways.

JIM: I don’t think of our music in terms of genres, they’re either sad or happy or angry. So, I don’t think we ‘pick’ genres; we make happy songs when we’re happy, and we make sad songs when we’re sad. Everything else is by-the-way. People come and tell us we’ve been doing industrial house, and we’re like – um, cool!

Jamati: Has there been a lot of positive reaction to your music?

BLINKY: The reaction has been positive amongst the people who have heard it, and we have people buying the albums either through word of mouth or from the shops. The reviews in the magazines that have featured it have been positive as well, and some radio stations are playing a couple of the tracks.

DAN: More and more. People who know about us generally appreciate what we do, where we try to go with music and visuals. We get an interestingly varied group of people declaring themselves fans of ours, different ages and races and so forth. I’ve heard about two kids under 5 who get all excited when our songs come on, and then we heard about these 60-year old Indians… We recently got our first album in stores, hopefully that’ll help expand the fan base…

JIM: People have generally been very nice to us. We were very nervous during our first performance two months ago, but the audience was really cool; they laughed at our bad jokes and gave us room to stumble around a bit.

Jamati: What are the challenges that you have faced trying to make a music video?

BLINKY: Visually, we try to pull off some crazy ideas, and it can be hard to, because the ideas in our heads are so huge so we have to contain them and that gets old sometimes because it’s just the three of us doing everything. I’d also say funds, but we’ve always found a way to work around that. Hopefully that won’t be the situation for too long.

DAN: No time! We’re doing everything ourselves, and that can get tiring, what with effects shots and animation and airbrushing… The Blair Witch Project is a favorite example of constraints working for a project. There’s something about being broke that brings out the mad scientist in you…

JIM: We’re using consumer-level gear to make videos; our camcorder is so small, people laugh every time I whip it out. I get into a lot of – “That’s it? It’s so…small” – conversations, I guess as a society we prefer – um – big equipment.

Jamati: What challenges have you faced in the Kenyan music industry and do you think that positive changes have been implemented??

BLINKY: It was hard getting our stuff played anywhere at first, maybe because our approach was radically different and it needed some getting used to. Lately, though, there seems to be a yearning for something that’s outside of what people are used to.

DAN: Music that’s somewhat different from the norm in the local scene is often not most people’s first choice. But we only just started putting our stuff out, and I think that it would take a little while longer, a little more pushing and acceptance, before there’s any huge effect. We’re still kind of a secret, for all the people who are finding out about us.

JIM: Dan mentioned shoestring budgets. I can’t complain about that, though, because so far it’s been largely by our own choice. I don’t think there’s any record label in Kenya which would have allowed us to release an album like ‘Scratch to Reveal‘. We enjoy being independent because we can present ourselves to our audience how we want, and generally say no to some things that artists signed to labels can’t afford to say no to.

Having said that, money will become useful when we start wanting to make lush videos with casts of thousands – all our videos have so far starred our friends in exchange for raiding our fridge, or puppets. Or drawings.

Positive changes? The Music Copyright Society of Kenya have made their presence felt, and it makes you feel like there’s some sort of structure growing. The other positive change is on the society’s part; the kids who’ve grown up watching MTV and surfing the web are now a large part of the audience, and they just want more interesting things.

Jamati: Are there any things that you think should be done to improve the music scene for aspiring musicians (perhaps to make it more lucrative or welcoming)?

BLINKY: I think the media has a role in exposing the public to more music than they are doing right now, it’s very annoying that you can listen to one song more than five times in a day, that attitude blinds the general public to what is going on around them, leading to mass ignorance as we know it today.

DAN: Royalties are a step in the right direction, though. We just have to try and be worth it, as artists. It’s not just about all the time you spent in the studio, you know? Did you come out with anything really moving? Did you move the people, make them laugh or cry or dance or think about something?

JIM: The one thing that makes being a musician in Kenya – or any kind of artist, for that matter – is the lack of structure; it’s very Wild West. Kids who want to be accountants or IT technicians know that they’re supposed to go to school, get a job and climb corporate ladders until they retire. Kids who want to sing or dance or act have to make up the structure as they go, and hope that they’ll be able to earn some money from it.

Jamati: Have any of the big music houses like MTV approached you about your music?

BLINKY: They are about to start playing some of our music videos on MTV base but that’s as far as it goes,but the future looks bright so maybe in future, who knows?

DAN: Fingers crossed… But the MTV Base guys here in Nairobi are pretty cool peoples that we know and do help us out when they can…

JIM: When we finally ran into them, we didn’t have to explain ourselves much. They just get it. Other stations have said all kinds of strange things to us – “We can’t play this because it has no lyrics”, “We don’t want to alienate our audience” etc., etc. It’s things like that that made us choose to make sure our stuff is really present on the Net where we can reach our fans directly, one on one.

7. Do you think you will do an African tour, and if so, what countries do you think you would include?

BLINKY: It seems far-fetched right now, far-fetched things have been known to happen, so we can’t discount anything, if or when it comes to pass… South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, and Egypt would be cool .

DAN: We would! We’d like to play fun, scenic places. Zanzibar, Egypt, South Africa… Although give me a random beach, waves lapping on the shore, a cool crowd and a starlit night and I’m good to go!

JIM: Egypt? That’d be cool. I’m not absolutely sure what Africans would think of songs like ours. In my head, when I think of African music I think of Fela and Masekela; big, strong men with large voices. We’re kinda thin and geeky in comparison. It makes me wonder if we’re ‘African enough’, whatever that means.

Jamati: Any collaboration with other African artists in the mix?

JIM: I can’t think of anyone.

BLINKY: I can only imagine… DJ Cleo would be cool Asa…would top my list. Oh, and Bongo Maffin.

DAN: DJ Vetkouk won’t return our phone calls…

Jamati: They are definitely funny and very creative. Thank you for granting us the interview.

To learn more about this group visit their website.