MW: Chris, you've got to explain for us your story. You're a kid from California you decide one day to just up and leave for Africa. Where did this desire come from?

CB: I think the whole thing actually started when one of my friends shoplifted a CD from our local music store. He didn't check to see what the CD was before he shoplifted, but thank God it was Fela's album called "Black President."

MW: Fela Kuti, from Nigeria, the late.

CB: Yeah. We threw it in to see what he had gotten and once I heard that music it changed my life forever.

MW: So you're saying crime does pay?

CB: No, I'm not saying that, but that's how it all started is that I heard this music...

MW: How old were you?

CB: Probably 14 years old when I heard that. It sort of peaked my interest and a few days later I saw a flyer which I probably would never have recognized if I hadn't heard that CD of some African dance and drumming that was going on in the area. And that's how I met my Master. I went to that class and began my, Titos Sompa became my teacher and I began my apprenticeship with him. Later when I was around 19 years old he took me back to Africa and basically dropped me off.

MW: So Titos Sompa was from where? What country was he from in Africa?

CB: He is from the Congo, not the Congo that was formerly Zaire, but...

MW: Congo-Brazzaville.

CB: Exactly, Congo-Brazzaville. And that was my first entry into Africa, Congo-Brazzaville.

MW: So what year was that, when did you go to Africa?

CB: It's all a bit cloudy now, but I believe it was around '89.

MW: And you were how old?

CB: I was 18, 19, somewhere around there. So I had already been studying the drums for a good 4 or 5 years before I actually went to Africa and I think that Titos timed it that way, so that I would really be ready to take in a lot when I got there.

MW: So you get to Congo, you're by yourself, you just show up...

CB: No, no, no, I went with Titos first to the Congo, he took me and what happened was we were in Brazzaville for a while and then we heard about a big ceremony that was happening in the interior of the country which was a 10 day boat ride up the Congo River. He basically took me over to the boat and put me on the boat and I went by myself up into the interior to a small village called Lukolela. It was in Lukolela that I think I saw my first picture of what I would consider real Africa. I sort of felt like I went to the heart of everything in that journey.

MW: And describe that for us, what was that picture of Africa?

CB: As I was heading up on the boat, they were communicating with log drums saying that I was coming and I think the communication got a little muddled because by the time I got there they thought I was a missionary. The missionaries who had been there before me had basically burnt all the drums and even cut hands off of drummers to state their point that the music was satanic and not good, so by the time I got there all the drums and everything had been hidden so they were acting like good Christians by the time I got there. And so I befriended a little boy and I kept asking him 'where are the drums, where are the drums' and he would always answer 'well, we're good Christians, we don't play the drums.' I just couldn't believe it, so I kept asking him, one day he finally got it that maybe I wasn't a missionary and he took me to where they had hidden the drums and I got so excited when I saw the drums I immediately started playing them and the people started racing out to the forest where the drums were hidden to quiet whoever the drummer was so that the white man wouldn't hear, but it was the white man playing the drum and the story unfolds from there.

MW: That is an amazing story. How long did you stay in this village?

CB: It was maybe a month or two that I was in that village and then I started having this re-occuring dream where I heard the mbira...

MW: It's from Zimbabwe, which is south of there.

CB: I started having this re-occuring dream where I heard the music and I saw women who I knew were from Zimbabwe beckoning me to come and so I went to the chief of the village who had actually offered me land and I had fallen in love there, was ready to just basically call it a day and live and spend the rest of my days in Lukolela. I told him about the dream and he told me if you have a dream like that you have to follow it, so made my way back down the river and journeyed to Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe is the place that I got to where I knew not a single soul and I basically got off the plane and was trying to ask people where I could find the mbira.

MW: It's a funny path that you've taken. You spent your childhood in California listening to death metal, bands like The Scorpions and now you're kind of in this whole new world, did you ever expect, when you were a kid listening to The Scorpions you were gonna end up here?

CB: Had absolutely no idea. But I have to say the first time I heard African music I did have an inkling, because it affected me so deeply, I thought 'I have to go to where this music is from, I must journey to this place.'

MW: It all started with that CD of Fela Kuti.

CB: It all started with Fela.

MW: Well enough talking about the mbira, let's hear what it sounds like and see where that whim took you today. Chris Berry, thank you very much for speaking with us.

Thank you.