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Mini-Biography
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Chicago INNERVIEW, Mini-Biography >>
Who would've thunk that a white boy from Sebastopol, Calif., would become an African spirit caller and reigning Bob Marley heir? It all started when a teenaged Chris Berry and his hoodlum friends shoplifted a Fela Kuti album. Berry was mesmerized by the Nigerian musician's pioneering Afrobeat sound and was inspired to spend more than a decade in the remote villages of Congo and Zimbabwe studying under mbira (i.e. thumb piano) and ngoma drum masters. During ceremonious performances, ancestor mystics possessed audience members and told Berry his mission was to be a "bridge maker" to the misguided United States, bringing socially conscious musical "medicine" to his diseased homeland. Though Berry and his band, Panjea, have sold out stadiums and garnered platinum album sales in Africa, their first domestic LP, Dancemakers, was just released in April. The calypso-style record is a hypnotic fusion of indigenous dance beats, surging horn sections and pleas for justice, peace and the elimination of racism. "One love, one heart" indeed. 05/06/06
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