Nijerusalem is what happens when you have faith in chance. Producer and beatmaker Roi Assayag, aka Tropikal Camel, crossed paths with Nigerian synth pioneer Mamman Sani at Nyege Nyege Festival in Uganda. What started as a project to record Sani’s tracks soon became a wholly collaborative album which roots its beauty and strength in the intertwinment of generations, religions, backgrounds, philosophies of sound, histories.
Q: What do you think was the key to bridging the generational difference between you and Mr. Sani? Or did working together come naturally? Did you know you were going to be recording an album together at Nyege Nyege?
A: No, it was actually an accident! I knew Mamman from his amazing albums in Sahel Sounds and when we met in Uganda there was an immediate connection between us: I was a fan and it was an amazing experience to be in Uganda, in this location next to the Nile. I knew that I had a two-weeks-long residency and that they had a small studio, so I just asked him if he wanted to record some tracks of his, and he said yes. The festival was kind enough to buy Mamman a new plane ticket and we got together, recording every day for two weeks in the studio. I actually didn’t know that it was going to be a collaborative album, I just wanted to record his own tracks in good quality so he would have them, but we had a good time, I love his music, I had already heard tracks in my mind and I had ideas for compositions. It was a great time!
Q: I was curious about that sample of a woman singing used in Toil, Sweat and Sun, since it really stuck with me. How did you come across it? What is your thought process, in general, for sample selection?
A: I mostly sample from field recording, but not always. My roots are as a beatmaker, so for me samples are the cornerstone of my music. First and foremost I am a digger, a collector of rare grooves. That is how I got to know Mamman in the first place. This specific sample comes from a rare field recording done in the 50s in Niger. Those records are the result of the tradition of colonialist music research. In many cases the artists that were recorded did not know these records were going to be sold. At the same time, they hold a cultural treasure. This woman’s singing reminded me of Berber pentatonic singing from Morocco and, in this song, I wanted it to be a kind of bridge:the percussion tends towards Egypt and the overall groove is Disco. At first I heard this track from Mamman’s keyboard. It had a housey vibe and I wanted it to be uplifting. The woman for me is the scream, or the call to freedom. Only later I understood that it is a song that was sung by slaves in the colonial area of the peanut field and I felt this freedom in the melody itself.
Q: What was it like to reinterpret Venusian Lady today? What led you to add the singing, especially considering that most of the tracks are completely instrumental?
A: This song was recorded in the 70s and it appears in its instrumental version under the name Salamatu. Mamman loves this song and I believe that he has been wanting to record this one for a long time. It a song about creating a bridge between cultures.
Q: What instruments did you use?
A: Mamman is using a keyboard and singing. I am using a computer and I recorded live drums, bass, percussion and Gimbri for some of the tracks when I came back to Berlin.
Q: Recently writer Nnedi Okorafor coined the term “Africanfuturism” to differentiate it from Afrofuturism as an expression of the African diaspora specifically. Based on the sound and the explicit references to spaceships and UFOs, do you feel a connection with either tradition? Do you consider yourselves a part of that legacy or did it inspire you in any way?
A: When we set down and chose the names, we took this kind of direction, as if NIjerusalem was an imaginary place, maybe a utopia, like another planet where cultures mix naturally and the spaceships and UFOs you mentioned are to be taken in the context of different tribes in Niger. I believe we both are nerds and we have some kind of outsider musicians mentality: we hear music differently. I saw this many times in the studio, it’s kind of like a frequency that is a bit off, so maybe that’s where this interest in African futuristic metaphors comes from.
Q: I feel there’s a sacred quality to the music, a collective movement towards both the sky and the ground, the roots. Do you think the record is spiritually charged? Did you intend it to be?
A: I believe me and Mamman don’t consider ourselves secular individuals: Mamman is a practicing Muslim and I am Jewish, born in Jerusalem from a liberal family that has roots in North Africa, but we still have a connection to religion.
I have a deep interest in mysticism and I have been practicing Buddhism lately. I believe the album is rooted in traditional tribal melodies from Niger – and this quality that’s inside these melodies, I bridged it to my North African roots. For example, in Fulani UFO, there’s a kind of a variation of 6/8 rhythm that has roots in Gnawa music from Morocco, which emerged as the ritualistic music of African slaves brought to Morocco. This mystic feel is also present in the whole Tropikal Camel project; in my solo albums I relate to rituals and the concept of trance.
Batov Records presents ‘Nijerusalem’, a groundbreaking collaboration between Nigerien synth pioneer Mamman Sani and Berlin-based electronic artist Tropikal Camel.
Mamman Sani’s electronic organ music, first recorded in 1978, made him a national hero in Niger, led to him writing the Niger’s new national anthem, and has long been cherished by aficionados for its unique blend of traditional Nigerien melodies and synth experimentation. Mamman’s music embodies a sense of intimacy, echoing the presence of a solo artist in the room with the listener.
This album is the result of a serendipitous meeting at the Nyege Nyege Festival in Uganda. Both artists shared a residency and studio space, which led to long recording sessions together over the course of two weeks, capturing the organic fusion of Mamman’s synth melodies and Tropikal Camel’s percussive electronic beats. Despite their divergent backgrounds and ages, Mamman at 73 and Tropikal Camel at 44, they found equilibrium in their collaborative process.
‘Nijerusalem’ pays homage to the warm synth sounds of the 80s while infusing them with an African electronic aesthetic. Mamman’s music, rooted in Nigerien folk traditions, finds new life in this sonic exploration.
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