ONE ON ONE: Band Beca

Girl group Band Beca, made up of Becky Sangolo and Carol Kamweru came to the limelight in 2016 with their single "Toka". With other singles like "Brathe" and "Tonight", the duo is enjoying time in the spotlight. They spoke to Josephine Mosongo.

Our career has shot up in such a short time. God has been great to us. That, plus having the right team. You need people who have been in the industry like DJ Pinye. He’s our mentor and knows the industry well, knows what works. We’ve learnt a lot so far.

When we first got the call from Coke Studio we felt  it was the right time. We kept thinking, we are not as big as the artistes on the show but we are big in our own right. AKA and Olamide who are on this season are hip hop superstars whom we met and got to work with and were both amazing.

Many wonder how we landed a spot on this season’s Coke Studio. But what we know is that we got the call. First time they called, they said they were debating between us and another artiste but didn’t say who. When the second call came, it was to confirm we had made it and we went crazy. From what we heard from insiders they (Coke Studio) look at how consistent you’ve been with your music and who is creating a buzz. We were featured on the “Big Break” section where they have the young and fresh.

We are Afro-Pop artistes but like working with rappers because it gives our sound a different feel. But if somebody wrote us a song we could probably rap. Pop and rap blend together, there’s a vibe to it; the edginess and sweetness mesh well.

Our first live performance was at Arboretum and it was the first time we performed "Toka" even before we had officially released it. We were trying to gauge people’s reaction and luckily it was well received.

We liked each other the first day we met at Sauti Academy. It was like when you’re alone in a new school and you want to get to know people then meet someone you immediately click with. We hung out all day long and never get bored with each other. We always have something to talk about yet we spend every single day together.

When we met, Becky was the more outgoing one but it has rubbed off on me. We are like twins, people tell us we both talk fast, especially when we are gossiping... It’s hard following our conversation but we understand each other.

We think pairing up is what gave us a perfect shot in the industry. We feed off each other’s strengths and learn from our weaknesses, we raise each other up. Where would we be without each other?

Since Tattuu, there has been a big gap in terms of girl groups in Kenya and we think we are doing a good job at filling it. We get a lot of DMs (Direct Messages) from young girls asking us how they can make it. It is really inspiring seeing others wanting to do this. We want to take this across Africa because we also don’t get to hear of girl groups from the continent. When people think or talk of girl groups from Kenya or Africa, we want them to think Band Beca.

We’ve worked with many producers and this is dictated by the sound we want. We have worked with Cedo, Jacky B and Saint P. We have a group we consult with when we want to work with different producers or even artistes and bounce ideas off each other.

Albums are not so popular right now but we want to bring them back. There are those songs that you just want to share with your fans, songs you feel could be intimate. We are still growing and we want to connect more with our fan base.

We admire Sauti Sol’s work ethic not only because they are the biggest band in Kenya, but because they are professional. They sometimes mentor us and we love seeing how they work, practice and deal with the business side of their music. They make you see beyond Kenya.

We love to work with different songwriters. There are artistes who don’t like using songwriters, because they feel like it is something to be ashamed of. There’s nothing wrong with that. When we can write our own songs we do, but if we can’t we outsource.

We style ourselves but do work with a few stylists. We shop anywhere and everywhere, we don’t care where a nice outfit comes from. We however splurge on shoes and for those we go to Backyard Shoez. We invest heavily on shoes and make up.

We disagree on a lot of stuff from the creative process to who to collaborate with. We are always respectful of each other’s ideas but when we can’t agree on anything, we have people like Pinye who help mediate.

We’ve been told our songs are usually played on MTV but we’ve never seen them. We have friends tell us ‘I’ve just seen your song on MTV’ and we always ask ‘why didn’t you take a picture or a video?’ That’s a huge deal for us. It’s a step to bigger things.

@jmmosongo