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The Intelligencer, Feature >>
"I grew up in Northern California in the midst of many hippies and liberal thinkers. A lot of my mentors growing up were earth people who were very concerned about the environment and justice and politics. Seeing situations in Africa and listening to people like Bob Marley, who is among my favorite lyricists, have all lent itself to that type of thinking," says Chris Berry. "It's important for my soul to be singing something that's meaningful to me, so I write lyrics that feed my soul when I'm singing."
DEFINING MOMENTS
Singer and musician Chris Berry has always paid attention to them and they've led to life and a career that have brought him pure bliss.
Sometimes. life's transformative moments aren't necessarily earthshaking. They may creep unexpectedly upon us, arriving in the midst of the mundane and settling quietly into our awareness.
Or they may hold us completely and immediately enthralled, bringing to life some undiscovered part of ourselves, though the sudden animation of knowing is as inexplicable as it is profound.
For Chris Berry, it was the discovery of Fela Kuti that would provide such a moment. The California native was about 12 when a friend thought it would be amusing to shoplift a cassette from the back of a record store. "We had no idea what it was," recalls Berry. "He just swiped it on a whim, but once he put it in, it changed my life forever."
He was instantly transported by the sounds of the pioneering Nigeria artist who put Afrobeat--a rousing infectious fusion of jazz, funk, and traditional African chanting--on the map.
"I have no idea what it was--it was such a spiritual, instinctual thing," says Berry. "I grew up in a very rural northern California kind of town. Five thousand kids from my background could have all stood there and listened to that CD, but I was the one who, for some reason, it totally grabbed."
It was that indefinable something that would guide him to who he is today--a rare combination of contemporary musician and ancient mystic, social commentator, and cultural ambassador, using the music he creates with his band, Panjea, as a call for unity, peace, and justice. Berry, who performs Wednesday at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, is an artist in the tradition of Bob Marley--and even Kuti, whose fierce political views and human rights activism informed his music--his lyrics protesting war, violence, and other forms of oppression, and espousing love and self-knowledge as the path to healing and empowerment.
With a dynamic sound steeped in the richness of the indigenous music of the Congo and Zimbabwe and drawing on elements of funk, reggae, and hip hop, it is music that exhilarates and uplifts and is meant, quite intentionally, for dancing. Berry's latest CD, aptly titled "Dancemakers," was released last week.
"I think music in our culture is a lot of times used for different reasons. Sometimes, it's to make people feel sexual or to make them feel angry or get their aggressions out. Each kind of music has a vibration that makes you feel a certain way," says Berry, who plays both the Zimbabwean mbira, or thumb piano, and the Congolese ngoma drum. "From what I've learned in Africa, I'm trying to use my music to basically uplift people and make them dance strongly. Dancing to me is like a style of yoga or a spiritual path. It's a healing thing. My mission is to use my music to heal and my lyrics to raise consciousness.
It was in fact dancing that led him to study the drum with expatriate African drum master, Titos Sompa, whose African dance class included live drumming. "I wasn't really interested in dancing at all but went to see the drumming," says Berry. "Titos made me dance for a year before he would teach me the drum. Later, I found out that in most languages in Africa, there's no separate word for music and dance. There's one word. If you don't know how music relates to dance, you can't understand the music and vice versa."
The more he learned, the more determined he was to visit Africa, and shortly after starting college, he boarded a plane for the Congo's Brazzaville. Traveling alone, he left the urban capital behind, taking a ten day boat ride up the Congo River to a remote village.
"For me, it was like going back to Mecca. It was the Mecca of my interests and musical inspiration," says Berry. "The Congo is the source of all Africa's popular music. Everyone in Africa recognizes the Congolese people as holding a special gift, and I was there really to learn music and experience music in its traditional context."
He immersed himself in the music and culture of the people. But lingering in his memory was another impression, similar to that moment when he first heard Kuti's voice.
"In college, I was really into anthropology. I used to go into the library and listen to all of the ethnological field field recordings in Shona (the native language of Zimbabwe)-- the recordings of Shona mbira music by Paul Berliner (a noted ethnomusicologist best known for his book "The Soul of Mbira'). It had the exact same effect as when I heard Fela," says Berry.
"But this time, instead of dancing wildly, I started crying. It wasn't tears of sorrow. It was tears of joy. When I have those experiences, they seem to guide my life and when I feel something that strongly, it's like a signpost giving me direction. That was a signpost to go to Zimbabwe.
He went not knowing a soul and discovered that finding an instructor wasn't as easy as he'd hoped, given that mbira music, long used by certain Shona tribes in every aspect of their sacred and secular lives, had been deemed Satanic by the missionaries.
"After wandering around, I found a white Rhodesian hunchback guy who had befriended all of the sacred masters. He was this extremely skinny hunchback, a seriously deformed man but with the most beautiful spirit and he loved mbira music--Heath Goddard was his name. Once I met him, that opened up a whole world to me," says Berry.
He remained in Zimbabwe for more that ten years, studying under one of those masters and starting his band, Panjea, as well as the nonprofit Panjea Foundation for Cultural Education. Eventually, Berry became a master himself, on both the ngoma and mbira earning the title of "gwenyambira" or "one whose musical calls the spirits."
"That means that I can go to a ceremony and play either the drum or the mbira and spirits will attend that ceremony and also possess spirit mediums who might be in attendance and then give people information," he says.
It was those very spirits who came with a specific message for Berry. "It was strongly suggested that I come back (home), and I also felt it in my own heart," he says. "I had my own responsibility to be a bridge maker and to carry the things I'd found in Africa back over the bridge to my own country. I could have affected my life greatly by staying over there -- I was really comfortable, I was very successful -- but I felt I could affect a lot more people's lives if I came back over here. My mom used to always say, 'To whom much is given, much is required,' and I felt I had a gift that I was required to share."
"My mother is an amazing woman and she was one of my main role models growing up and she always said, ' Do what you love and whatever you do shall be loved.' I fell in love with African music and that became my bliss and I followed it," says Berry, who now splits his time between New York and Zimbabwe. "I never really knew what my career would be. I truly just followed my mom's advice, and the rest followed."
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---Naila Francis can be reached at (215) 345-3149 or nfrancis@phfllyBurbs.com. 04/27/06
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