City duo veer off the beaten path

Dynamic duo Amos and Josh have released the second video of their upcoming project titled Contrast. Amos and Josh’s 'Baadaye' is an unusual release on death from an urban duo. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • The song’s video begins with a melancholic acoustic guitar, Josh clad in white, a scene that dissolves into a tearful woman pondering what to write on a piece of paper. She is mourning the abrupt demise of a loved one.
  • Music lecturer Mutuku agrees that minor keys are inherently sad. The songs, as the study mentioned, usually begin softly, then rise in volume. Good vocalists — such as Amos towards the end of the song — can explore their prowess on various octaves. Accompany that with a slow tempo and you have a tear jerker.

In a country where songs seldom explore the theme of death, Amos and Josh’s Baadaye is an emotionally devastating piece. When the song’s structure and arrangement is measured against studies on how to write sad, sombre songs, it shows is a rare shift from Kenya’s contemporary music.

Amos Muema and Joshua Simani shot to the limelight after being the first runners-up of the singing competition Tusker Project Fame in 2013.

The song’s video begins with a melancholic acoustic guitar, Josh clad in white, a scene that dissolves into a tearful woman pondering what to write on a piece of paper. She is mourning the abrupt demise of a loved one.

Josh sings rather vulnerably: “Ni hau, uliniwacha mi bila faham, kuwa ni yako zam. Angalau, ungeniambia eti unakam, nitulize ham,” loosely translated to mean “you left me without a warning, that it was your time, it would have been better if had you told me you are coming I would have calmed myself.”

Then the scene moves to a bridge where he expresses hope that he would see his loved one in the afterlife. “Safiri salama, msalimu maulana tutaonana baadaye” (Travel safe, greet God, we will shall meet again).

Then, in a bittersweet hope in death, he accepts that his loved one is gone.

“Ndioooo tutaonana baadaye nakam nakam, mpendwa tabasam tutataonana baadaye” (Yes, we will see each other later, we will see each other later, I am on my way, my love smile, we will see each other later.”

After the chorus, rapper Rabbit joins in talking about an empty house without the deceased.

A keen ear will hear the melody of I will Trust, a famous Pentecostal tune by America’s gospel singer Fred Hammond as a steady tune in the chorus.

INHERENTLY SAD

Except for gospel musicians who believe in the afterlife, and the Luo community where death holds a special cultural symbolism that always ends up in music — see dirges and older bands like Colela Mazee and Omore Kings who used songs to mourn people beloved of the community — Kenyan contemporary artistes do not  draw inspiration from death.

James Mutuku, a music lecturer at Maseno University, lists benga artiste Madanji Perimeter, whose dirge on the music scholar Prof Caleb Okumu moved mourners to tears.

When Amos and Josh dared cross that line, they played right into the rules that musicians and psychologists have said of what would make a song as sad as 'Baadaye'.

Last year, the Scientific American magazine published an article on the widely accepted, albeit vague, notion that the interval of a minor third conveys sadness.

A minor third is two pitches separated by one full tone and a semitone, normally sounding like an incomplete sound.

Music lecturer Mutuku agrees that minor keys are inherently sad. The songs, as the study mentioned, usually begin softly, then rise in volume. Good vocalists — such as Amos towards the end of the song — can explore their prowess on various octaves. Accompany that with a slow tempo and you have a tear jerker.

This is exemplified by Adele’s Someone Like You, Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On and the 1973 oldie Fire and Rain by James Taylor, which has been covered by many artistes to this day.

Of course, there are exceptions. There are happy songs that defy this minor-chord-slow-tempo rule: Shakira’s lustful Hips Don’t lie is in minor key but is also fast paced.

When asked about the structure of the song, its producer Cedric “Cedo” Kadenyi of Pacho Entertainment said it was written on the key D minor. He said that the chords progression as well as the vocals were carefully crafted to create the sombre mood.

“When we are sad, we speak slowly and in this case, the chorus involves a very long and sustained ‘Ndiooo,’ like someone is wailing.” He added: “Generally, it is a song that would fit the feeling of loss for me when I am bereaved.”

Josh said he lost a newly engaged friend. “When the song was released, Fidel Odinga had just passed on, and a few months later the children in Garissa University were killed… I have found myself crying all the time whenever I sing it over all these sad things.”